


In His Masters' Service

by iberiandoctor (jehane18)



Series: To Master and to Serve [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Play, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Cane Porn, Caning, Choking, Desk Sex, Dom/sub, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, M/M, Madeleine Era, Post-Seine, Power Exchange, Power Imbalance, Prison Sex, Rough Oral Sex, Switching, Toulon Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 19:21:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7186883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehane18/pseuds/iberiandoctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Seine, Valjean and Javert build a life together. One winter, Javert's past exploitation by his superiors, including Chabouillet —who once took it upon himself to personally address Javert's obsession with M. le Maire in Montreuil-sur-Mer — catches up with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Firestorm717](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firestorm717/gifts).



> Firestorm, both your JVJ and C/J prompts spoke to me, and I hope you enjoy how I chose to combine them! Your gorgeous story [The Price of Patronage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6337429) inspired everything.

_**Chapter 1.1 — Rue Plumet; February, 1834** _

There had been stars to witness Javert's fall from grace at the Pont au Change. 

He had then thought them remote and merciless, cold guardians of the law, the all-seeing eyes of a vengeful God bent on punishment. But after Valjean had rescued him from the river, he realised that God had in fact been keeping a merciful watch over him after all. God had led Valjean to seek him out that night, despite Javert's own fruitless pursuit of the man for seventeen years, and Valjean had found him and brought him home.

There were the same stars above Valjean's house in Rue Plumet, with its lush garden and trees that looked almost as if they were older than Paris itself. There, sheltered from the ruin of his old world, Javert had allowed Valjean to help him put the shattered pieces of himself together. Out of the rubble of both their pasts, the years of flight and pursuit, they built a world that was new, a world where the both of them could live together: no longer as enemies, no longer convict and guard, fugitive and policemen, but as friends, companions, lovers.

It took time to rebuild what years of fear and fury and one night of earth-shaking transformation had brought low. The seasons' stars swept over their heads in one revolution and then two. Vajean married off his daughter and gained a son, and his nemesis was shipped off across the seas for good, never to return. 

Javert remained under Valjean's roof and thrived under his care. When he was not spending his modest retirement reading at the Bibliothèque Mazarine on Quai Conti, or helping to put in order historical police documents for collation with the National Archives, he would lie on his back in the Rue Plumet garden under untroubled skies, watching Valjean tend to the soil in much the same way as he had tended to Javert's broken body and heart. 

It was much the same inside the house, in the bedroom upstairs. Under merciful stars, in the heart of their new domain, they came together so carefully, as if the slightest mis-step might shatter their happiness forever. Their bodies were new to each other and, in truth, to themselves. Valjean's sixty winters had encompassed enough chastity for an entire lifetime; he had known no hand other than his own, had known no lover's touch until the first kiss Javert had pressed to his brow and then to his lips. 

Javert's own past had been filled with a different kind of chastity, the kind born of violence and self-denial. But Javert knew Valjean did not wish to relive old memories of hurt and fear, not chiefly because of the part Javert himself had played in those memories. In any case, what place did that unquiet past have in their tranquil new world?

And so Javert held his peace. 

It was better that way. Certainly when measured against the immense privilege of living at Valjean's side, of sitting at his table and sharing the streets of Paris with him, of attending services at at Église de Saint-Sulpice and being welcomed into the Pontmercy home as honoured guest. 

And he would not have wished to hazard the sheer indulgence of awakening with Valjean in their bed in the morning, of climbing into that bed with him at night, of holding Valjean in his arms and taking his pleasure from that powerful body — which, by some miracle, had now been given over to him, which was now his to cherish, after so many years of loss.

The night had begun as blissfully, as harmoniously, as all other nights in their shared world. 

Toussaint had left them a covered pie for dinner; they had shared a bottle of wine from Bordeaux, and after they put the plates away they retired upstairs and washed each other's backs in the last of the day's drawn water. 

"Would you?" Javert asked when they were done. 

Valjean said, "Gladly," and drew him down to their bed with his large convict's hands, whose gentleness belied their immense strength.

Javert suppressed a shudder. He knew he could not give himself over to the strength in those hands, much as he desired to do so.

"Come, then," he said, and Valjean fitted himself closely into Javert's arms. He pressed slow kisses to Valjean's eager mouth. Under the starlight from their bedroom window, he ran his own hands down Valjean's scarred body, in long, luxurious movements designed to bring Valjean to shy life. 

When at last Valjean was flushed and hard and ready for him, he reached for the oil and took his place between Valjean's legs. It was as lush and pleasurable as it always was, Valjean opening for him and taking him into his body as easily and generously as he had taken Javert into his life. 

It was a gift that Javert did not deserve, that he could try to atone for over five lifetimes and not make sufficient reparation for: that this good, gentle man would trust him so completely, would disarm himself before the enemy that had hounded him for so long, would let that enemy put his hands on him and stroke him until he reached shuddering release in great ropes of white.

As usual, Javert found his own release shortly after. He would never have his fill of this man, Jean Valjean, the rock upon which he had rebuilt his world.

After the long passage of love, Valjean rose stiffly from the bed. He stretched slowly, arms reaching up ahead of him, the muscles in his back working under his bare skin. There was a noise as one of his joints cracked, and he made a small sound of discomfort.

"Jean, are you well?"

"My back is sore," Valjean said, rolling his shoulders. He turned around to face Javert, arms outstretched. "Not a young man any longer, you know."

"Nonsense, you are young yet," Javert began to say, looking up at him. He did not know how true that was until he spoke the words. 

In the starlight, the years fell from Valjean, the darkness of their room pooling at his feet, casting his face into shadow. Standing backlit by the bright moon, he looked young and strong and vital again, his shoulders almost as broad as the window was wide, massive chest covered in a sheen of sweat, his manhood ruddy and still half-hard. His hair stood fiercely atop his head like a burning fire. 

Suddenly, Javert was filled with another image that superimposed itself on this one, as sharp and sudden as a lash.

_He sees a man in a ragged red smock so tattered he might almost have been naked, the brands of the gaol marking his bare skin. He stands at the edge of Toulon's sea, his hairy, tattooed breast outlined against the sullen sky, his shaved head held defiantly high despite the weight of the iron collar riveted around his neck, his thighs like tree trunks, the thick bulge of his manhood between them like that of a beast in the field._

_Old memories of Toulon flare through Javert like lightning: the lash, the salt air, the fingers closing around his windpipe. His mouth fills with water; his throat aches to be used._

Without transition, he was on his knees on the floor as if it were the dirt of the bagne.

A convulsion shook the powerful body before him. Javert came to himself and looked up into Valjean's eyes, lined with the years that filled both their lives since Toulon.

"What is the matter? Javert, please get up."

Javert stared into Valjean's familiar, beloved face and saw the young, brutal lines of the convict's features under his friend’s paper-thin skin. He said, not knowing what he was saying, "You look as Jean-le-Cric looked in Toulon." 

His eyes raked down the broad, naked body, realised he has closed his fist around Valjean's erection. Somehow he bent his head to it, took it into his mouth. Even half-hard, it was so large he couldn't breathe around it, and as he gagged he felt a familiar thrill.

Valjean said: "You don't — no!" He seized Javert's wrist and opened his hand.

Javert opened his mouth, too, fell back onto his haunches, shook his head to clear it of the memories. Valjean's confused, distressed glare didn't belong to the glowering convict. It was the look of the man who had been redeemed by the Bishop, who had spent his life striving for sainthood, who had saved the enemy who had persecuted him for years and taken that enemy into his heart. That look grounded Javert at last in the present, in Rue Plumet, at the end of his life, not its beginning in Toulon.

"Javert, what are you doing? For the love of God!"

"I am sorry," Javert whispered. There was a gulf inside him that no amount of peace and reassurance could fill.

Valjean looked shocked and distraught, as well he might, being reminded of the trauma of Toulon. He backed out of the room; the bedroom door shut with a resounding noise.

Javert knew he should go after his friend and make his apologies. That was unquestionably the right thing to do. He had no previous experience even of friendship, but he imagined this must be how companions acted when one of them did something incredibly stupid or upsetting and could not explain why, even to themselves.

But he could not find it in himself to do anything except get from his knees and crawl into bed. His teeth chattered together although the mild February night was not cold. He drew the covers over his body, careless of the dried spend on his bare thighs.

It was if the shining surface of his world had cracked open, and inside were the water-logged cobblestones that he had trodden for twelve years, the sea salt air that filled his nasal passages, the rows of grey bodies with whom he had spent his youth, the sweet flare of the lash and the fierce, bright joy of being of service. 

He had thought these early memories buried in Toulon's hard ground, but it seemed they had followed him home after all.

 

 _ **Chapter 1.2 — Toulon; 1801 to 1813**_  
  
Toulon: where the sun beats mercilessly down on the rows of anonymous bodies bent double in the labour of their righteous punishment, where the biting wind chills to the bone. 

It is here that Javert learns to watch the stars as they shine in the bowl of night over the prison grounds: the Law's faithful sentinels keeping watch over them. He learns to make himself as fierce and irreproachable, to keep his uniform clean and correct and to conduct himself with strict rectitude.

The other guards might make fun of him behind his back — who does this eager young man think he is, holding himself to law and order in this wild place as if he has his own truncheon perpetually stuck up his arse? Javert pays them no mind. It is his duty to guard and to serve.

In Toulon, the prisoners are nameless, numbers to the guards and to each other. Their punishment is mandated by law: the sentences handed down by the assizes and appeal courts, and subsequent punishment by the laws of conduct of the bagne. 

Sometimes Javert sees conduct that is not mandated. Where there are infringements, he does not hesitate to step in — the manual says the prisoners are to be given one period of rest for every period of work, for instance, and when Philippe forgets and sends 35685 out for a second double shift Javert is there to remind him. Where the conduct does not infringe, he holds his peace. 

Still, some conduct troubles him, and he cannot explain why. For instance, the ordinance mandates the affixing of iron collars to the prisoners' necks, to chain them to each other by their ankles so that flight is not an option for them. It is the practice to transport them in chains to and from the worksite. It is not prohibited to exert discipline by taking hold of a prisoner by his collar, by the manacles holding his wrists together. However, that is a method which is of uncertain efficacy. It makes some prisoners docile, but for others it appears to rile them up even more. For the prisoners of smaller stature, the practice could be outright dangerous. 

For one prisoner, the brutal, bestial one the others called Jean-le-Cric, it is painful. It is not difficult to notice this man: he stands like a giant amongst even the largest, most hardened convicts of the bagne, unbowed and defiant; he once tried to escape from the bagne and almost succeeded. He can lift four times the weight of any normal person. He is taller than most of the guards and adjutant-guards, almost as tall as Javert himself; his thick neck, corded with muscle, seems almost equal to the iron band around it.

And yet when a guard puts his hand on this convict's collar to guide or subdue him, the man's eyes fill with tears. It is as if the choking brings the wild animal back to himself — a man who might have had a family, might have reasons for committing the acts of violence for which he was imprisoned. 

It is in Toulon where Javert learns that he can be of service to proper authority in a different way.

The Adjudant-Chef, M. Maugin, is a 30-year veteran of the service; he takes note of the guards and adjutant-guards under his authority. The older ones who are willing to serve, the young ones who are willing to learn, are looked upon with favour. Javert is not afraid of work, is fiercely diligent in all matters — in exerting his control over the prisoners, in the statutes and books that he studies to improve himself, and in submitting to authority in his turn. 

The first time he gets on his knees, it stops his breath and hurts his throat and he feels as if he is dying; he doesn't understand the savage exultation surging through his own body as he brings M. Maugin to climax. He soon discovers what the urgency means, though, and also learns to allocate to himself some private time later in his shared quarters in order to seek relief: alone, as is only proper.

He finds favour with M. Maugin both on his feet as well as on his knees. Over the years he is promoted to guard, and then the head of his section. 

Jean-le-Cric makes the second of many attempts to escape and is recaptured. Javert is among the guards who drag him back into the bagne by the neck like a dog. With his hands on the convict's collar, testing his strength against that of the wild man, choking the air from him as he struggles, traitorous thoughts well up within Javert that stop his own throat — that of subduing his own power before that of the beast, that of Jean Valjean's impossible strength driving him to his knees and choking the life out of him. 

Of course, it is unthinkable for a guard to be subdued before a convict wearing a collar. Javert sets his teeth against the desire that fills his body with betraying, pulsing need. He calls on his fellow guards to put their backs into it as they beat Valjean to within an inch of his life. 

Convicts serve their time and serve authority, not the other way around: that is the hierarchy which Javert commits to everything that he does, that he is.

The day comes when he rises to the attention of M. le Commissaire himself. The chief of the bagne looks favourably on Javert's recommendation to revise the standard measures of Toulon's recidivism rates, and then takes hold of the leather stock which Javert wears as part of his uniform. He deprives Javert of air using both his fingers and his large prick, and as he climaxes on Javert's face Javert is himself for the first time brought to his own shuddering, shameful climax in front of another man. 

Then another day comes, after twelve years in Toulon. 

Javert has just stood down from his shift when he receives the message to present himself at M. le Commissaire's private quarters for dinner. He washes and changes and performs his toilette with his usual rectitude: his hair is oiled and pulled back, his garde-chiurme's uniform is spotless, his leather stock buckled carefully at the nape of his neck. 

M. le Commissaire receives him in his small, serviceable private dining room. He is not alone. There is with him a tall man of military bearing, dressed in the elegant navy uniform of a career police officer, the sombre braids and decorations on his shoulders and collar denoting high rank. Javert has never been in the presence of such a senior official.

"Monsieur, allow me to present my most able officer, Section Head Javert. Javert, please extend your greetings to my old friend, M. Chabouillet, the honoured M. le Secrétaire to the Prefecture of Police in Paris."

Javert bows and M. Chabouillet extends his hand. He is taller and younger than M. le Commissaire, the crisp golden curls on his head untouched by grey, but he fills the room with his unmistakable authority. His handshake is firm, almost painful, that of a man used to wielding power.

"M. le Commissaire has spoken very highly of you, particularly your ability to serve." 

"M. le Commissaire is too kind," Javert says. He is aware that he is holding M. Chabouillet's piercing gaze. He does so for a moment longer and then looks down, deferring to proper authority. "He is not wrong, however, in that I am eager to serve."

M. Chabouillet makes an approving sound. M. le Commissaire says, "As I mentioned, his record is spotless, M. le Secrétaire. Over twelve years, not a single demise, injury or reportable incident on his watch, and he assisted in the apprehension of three dangerous criminal escapees."

"That is commendable," M. Chabouillet says. "Will you stay for dinner?"

"I have indeed invited him to join us," M. le Commissaire says, and for the first time in his life Javert sits down to a formal meal with silverware and porcelain and formal service. Thanks to books on etiquette, Javert knows how to manage the place settings, handles the correct cutlery with economic movements; knows to speak when spoken to.

Between forkfuls of beef bourguignon, M. Chabouillet expresses interest in Javert's thoughts to improve conditions at the bagne and for better security for the higher-risk prisoners. Javert is also familiar with police procedure, and expresses his approval for the minimum sentencing provisions in the Penal Code 1810.

"There is some notion to reduce the scope of Penal Code sentencing," M. Chabouillet remarks. 

"Monsieur, I am aware. However, until the legislature seeks the reduction formally, the law should be executed to its letter," says Javert. 

M. Chabouillet says, thoughtfully, "One wonders if recidivism would be reduced if sentences were in fact shorter?"

"The reports I have read would indicate the duration of the sentences has almost no causal effect on recidivism rates," Javert says. "In any case, sentencing should have little bearing on active policing across the provinces."

"That is so," M. Chabouillet says. He is smiling; Javert wonders how much of this meal is a test, and how he is faring. "I am impressed that you have kept abreast of policing considerations as well as legislation out here in this coastal city. Tell me, have you never aspired to a career in the police force?"

Javert sets his fork to one side. This is after all what he does aspire to, with a fierceness that has always driven him to succeed, and this officer in his authoritative uniform is everything he admires.

"It is indeed, Monsieur. I have little formal schooling, but I have learned the laws and made a study of all applicable regulations."

M. Chabouillet's blue eyes are penetrating, and Javert finds himself continuing, unaware of what he will say until the words come, hot and fierce. "I am told my father was also a convict. I never knew him. Perhaps this is why I have made it my life's work to serve in this place of authority, to ensure that criminals such as he are no danger to our civilised society."

M. le Commissaire makes a surprised noise, but Javert only has eyes for M. Chabouillet, whose aristocratic face lights in appreciation at Javert’s words. He, too, puts his fork down.

"It is admirable that you have managed to overcome such humble beginnings and achieved much in this short time. Our civilised society has a need for men such as you."

"Much can be achieved through hard work," Javert says firmly. He can hear the quick beat of his pulse in his ears, of his savage desire to rise above the gutter, although his voice is very calm.

After dessert and coffee, M. Chabouillet poses a question to his host. "M. le Commissaire, I am not familiar with the town of Toulon. Would you allow Section Head Javert to escort me to my hotel?"

"I was going to suggest this myself, Monsieur," M. le Commissaire says, with a small, meaningful smile. The gentlemen exchange bows and handshakes, M. Chabouillet's coat and hat and cane are retrieved, and Javert makes his own thanks to M. le Commissaire.

"It is I who should thank you, Javert, for your years of faithful service. And, if all goes well, this too will be a gesture of my thanks."

Javert thinks he knows M. le Commissaire's meaning. If so, he is willing.

M. Chabouillet is passing the night at the better of the two hotels along the Rue au Foin, a stone's throw from M. le Commissaire's quarters. The evening air is uncommonly mild, the night's stars bright enough to illuminate their path. Under the starlight, M. Chabouillet's golden hair is like a beacon, as is the gold lion's head atop his long cane.

They walk side by side silently, the lights of the town hanging ahead of them. Most businesses have shut for the evening: closing comes early to the town of Toulon in the winter months. Javert keeps hold of his guardsman's truncheon. Petty crime is not prevalent in this town well-defended by the Ministry of the Navy, but it would not do for any harm to come to this respected man while on his watch.

"I found it most moving and honest that you would speak to me of your father," M. Chabouillet says, at last. "Am I right in thinking that you have never mentioned him before to any other?"

"Never," Javert says truthfully. He does not often think of his beginnings amongst the lowest elements of society, save with the burning conviction that he would rise above them, that he would guard society from the likes of them. "I am still not sure why I did so."

"It must be the effect I have on you. Promise me that you will always be as honest with me, Javert."

M. Chabouillet puts his free hand on Javert's arm, just above the elbow. He is wearing gloves, but his touch sends a jolt of heat through two layers of fabric in any case. Javert's mouth goes dry, he cannot look away.

"I never lie, Monsieur," he says, his voice uneven.

"Then you will be a breath of fresh air in the Prefecture," M. Chabouillet says, archly. He looks obliquely at Javert, who quickly schools his face to calm. "Would you like that? To train for a career in the police force, to serve one day at the Prefecture of Police in Paris?"

"It is an honour I have never allowed myself to imagine," Javert says, entirely honestly, and M. Chabouillet laughs. 

"I see that. But it is an honour I am considering offering to you, Javert." 

Javert bends his head. Not for the first time this night, he is unsure of what to say, unable to articulate how desperately he wants to earn this honour.

The lamps of the Hotel des Fleurs signal a welcome to their esteemed guest from Paris. Their light is reflected in M. Chabouillet's cool eyes as he pauses on the inn's stone steps.

"Would you like to discuss this matter further in my rooms?"

Javert nods. He is unsure if he can trust his voice. He is aware that it might come to this. His own body's response has made clear to him how much he has been hoping it would come to this.

M. Chabouillet's rooms are larger and more luxurious than any Javert has ever seen in his life, decorated with heavy velvet and dark wood and gilt-edged pictures. A fire is already smouldering in the fireplace, casting the rooms alternately in flickering light and shadow. The curtains are drawn back to let the starlight through.

M. Chabouillet removes his hat, overcoat and gloves. He does not immediately invite Javert to follow suit. Instead, he looks up at Javert's face for a long time. Then he reaches out with his cane and flicks open the front of Javert’s coat, observing the press of Javert's arousal that impedes the strict lines of his uniform trousers.

"You must be certain this is what you want," M. Chabouillet says. "Because once you agree, there is no returning to what you once were, until you are released from my patronage." His voice is quiet and low and yet would have carried across the longest hall. 

"Yes," Javert says. His throat is very dry. He is not sure what he is being asked, what he wants, is only sure of one thing: that he might die if he is not permitted to kneel before this man.

"Very well," M. Chabouillet says. "Let us commence. Your coat, your hat, your weapon."

Javert divests himself of these defences one by one, unsteadily. 

"Your jacket," M. Chabouillet says. Javert unbuttons and un-shoulders his uniform jacket to stand in his shirtsleeves before the fireplace.

The next instruction is, "On your knees," and he drops to the carpet in front of M. Chabouillet.

From this vantage point, the Secretary of the Prefecture looks like a graven statue of authority, cruel and beautiful. The firelight casts his marble face into sharp relief.

"Good," he murmurs; "now, free me," and Javert reaches for the fastenings at the front of M. Chabouillet's breeches.

M. Chabouillet's erection is large and veined like fine Italian marble; he is bigger than M. Maugin, than M. le Commissaire, as big as the convict Jean-le-Cric himself. Javert wraps his hand around the ruddy girth, and when M. Chabouillet blinks his assent, he starts to stroke.

"Good," M. Chabouillet says again. "You will find that my standards are demanding, Javert, and that I require most exacting service. If you do not hold yourself to these standards, I may be required to punish you severely."

"I would accept any chastisement that is my due," Javert says. He is gratified to note M. Chabouillet is breathing more quickly, that a bead of fluid has escaped from the head of that large arousal and has made the movement of his hand slick and easier. 

"Never make me doubt that," M. Chabouillet murmurs. He reaches down to wind a hand in Javert's carefully bound hair. "Now, your mouth."

Javert puts his lips to M. Chabouillet's hard flesh, tasting reverently. He feels M. Chabouillet's fingers tighten and takes him deeply into his mouth.

M. Chabouillet tastes earthy and strong, so different from everyone and everything here — M. Maugin, M. le Commissaire all taste of Toulon's salt, as no doubt would the prisoner Jean of Faverolles.

Javert thrusts away the thought of the convict, schools himself to focus all his attention on M. Chabouillet: his thickness filling Javert's mouth, his length pressing against the back of Javert's throat. 

Javert wills himself not to gag. Calmly, diligently, he tests himself, makes the muscles in his throat relax and stretch to accommodate the man's bulk. After a moment, he has prepared himself sufficiently so he can to start to move, slowly, carefully swallowing M. Chabouillet down.

M. Chabouillet lets out a long hiss of pleasure. "Very good," he says. "You learn very quickly."

Javert feels pride swell in his breast. More daringly, he hollows his cheeks, begins to suck, a technique that M. le Commissaire particularly enjoys. M. Chabouillet groans, and his other hand comes up to rest against the nape of Javert's neck. He begins to thrust into Javert's mouth.

Javert uses the flat of his tongue on the upward stroke, and M. Chabouillet bites out a curse. His fingers find their way into the leather stock around Javert's throat, and he begins to tug. 

Javert feels the constriction in his airway, hears himself make a ragged sound. His nostrils flare but he cannot take in sufficient air. And yet he does not struggle or pull away; he continues to let M. Chabouillet use his mouth with abandon. This is another test, and he does not intend to fall at this hurdle. 

M. Chabouillet thrusts up harshly, releases the pressure of his fingers, and Javert can breathe again. He pants hard through his nose, feels his heart racing, feels the blood rush back into hands and feet and swelling into his prick. This complete surrender of control is making the familiar need so much sharper, M. Chabouillet's hand on his throat filling him with a desire that threatens to overwhelm him completely.

"So obedient," M. Chabouillet gasps, "I only need to crook my fingers and you understand how I require it —" and he closes his hand again.

Javert's throat is in small agony, stretched and battered by M. Chabouillet's prick, but nothing compares to not being able to breathe. Javert's body is shaking, he can barely control any of his muscles; it is taking everything he has to keep his mouth open. From very far away he hears someone making sounds like an animal in pain and realises the noises are coming from him.

From very far away, also, he hears M. Chabouillet curse and moan as if he, too, is in agony. Javert's vision is greying around the edges, sparks are exploding behind his eyes; he feels a massive tremor rack through all his limbs —

— and then the terrible pressure is released from his neck, the swollen flesh slides from his mouth, and Javert draws in desperate gulps of air as M. Chabouillet spends in hot, bitter gouts across his cheek.

Javert cannot hold himself up any longer; he collapses on the floor, his body shaking with huge, shuddering breaths and his own helpless release. 

After long moments, he manages to pull himself upright. His throat feels bruised, his face is wet; his uniform is in sodden, shameful disorder. 

M. Chabouillet gets to one knee beside him and puts an arm about his shoulders. Javert draws away, afraid to defile his new patron with his humiliating discharge, but M. Chabouillet is surprisingly gracious. Gently, he wipes Javert's face with a square of cotton that must be his own handkerchief.

"You did very well, my wolf-hound," M. Chabouillet says. "Does it still hurt?"

"No," Javert says. It comes out as a croak, but any speech at all is a victory under the circumstances.

Incredibly, M. Chabouillet passes him the handkerchief so he can wipe the front of his uniform and pull himself together.

"Do you still take the dawn shift at the bagne, even at your seniority?"

Javert nods. "Standards must be met," he says, with some difficulty. 

"Then stay with me tonight, my protégé," M. Chabouillet says, helping Javert to his feet. The commanding blue eyes are full of promise. "Return in the morning early enough to change your clothes and break your fast at the mess. But stay here tonight, and continue to serve." 

Looking up into that hard, handsome face, Javert feels he finally understands the true meaning of service. 

"I will," he says, thereby sealing the covenant in return. 

 

**_Chapter 1.3 — Rue Plumet; February, 1834, the next morning_ **

Javert awakened slowly. For a long moment, he could not shake off the dark, salty air of Toulon. He was unsure of where he was in this quiet room, with its long window letting in the pale morning light and the canopy of old trees in the garden outside. 

There was no mistaking the man in the bed with him, though. He had known Jean Valjean for more than half his life, for longer than he had known any living person. He did not need to turn to know who it was that lay beside him, pressed against his back timidly as if still unsure he belonged there.

Javert closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the strong, clean scent of Valjean's skin. 

He must have fallen asleep to thoughts of Toulon. He did not know why he had dreamed of Chabouillet when he had not thought about his former patron for years: the man had apparently retired in 1832, soon after Javert himself, and he had no reason to doubt that that retirement was peaceful and satisfactory.

Their connection, of course, had been anything but peaceful or satisfactory, but Javert owed a profound debt to the man for his years of patronage and instruction. And after all he had done nothing to Javert that Javert himself had not consented to — Javert flushed, recalling saying "Yes" to Chabouillet that first time, and every time after.

Even now, Javert felt something stir within him at the memory of Chabouillet's hand on his throat, Chabouillet's prick in his mouth. At the memory of the pride he had felt in his own career success and in being of service, of the pleasurable shame that flooded him when he gave in to his body's needs. 

He thrust the memories away. They had no place in his new world, his new life with Valjean: who placed no demands on him, who would rather cut off his own hand than hurt him, who would never command him against his will, even if Javert himself begged him for it.

Javert could tell by Valjean's breathing that his friend, too, had awakened. 

He turned around slowly, so he could not startle Valjean. He put his arm a little awkwardly around the broad chest and looked into Valjean's gentle eyes.

"I did not hear you come back to bed."

"I did not wish to disturb you," Valjean said. "I know you have the hearing of a bat, but I also know how to be quiet." He smiled sheepishly, and Javert smiled back.

Now, to apologise. He rubbed Valjean's shoulder and said, with some difficulty, "Jean, I am sorry. I do not know what came over me last night. I know the past is painful for you, and I did not mean to cause you distress." 

Valjean said, diffident, "I am sorry, too. You just startled me, I did not mean..." He looked away, and then back again, flushing a little, "...That is to say, you know I am unschooled in such matters. But if you desire to engage in other acts apart from what we usually do, in bed, that is, then you may not find me unwilling." He smiled again. "You just have to give me some warning beforehand."

Javert snorted so he would not grin foolishly, his heart expanding in his chest. "Some warning? Because your friend is the sort of deviant who might take hold of you unexpectedly at any moment, otherwise?" He pressed his lips to Valjean's collarbone, affection welling up within him. "And why I would want to engage in other acts, when I have all I need here with you?"

Valjean flushed again at his words, and no wonder: Javert had no idea where these ridiculous, romantic pronouncements were coming from. He seized hold of Valjean and kissed him so as to put his mouth to better use. 

They hardly did this in the mornings, with the errands of the day ahead and the unforgiving sunlight full upon them, but Javert cast caution to the wind to fully take advantage of the access Valjean's nightshirt gave him and his own nakedness. And why not, when truly he had everything he could ever want here in Valjean's bed? 

He kissed his friend until they were both breathless; he put his prick against Valjean's and rubbed both of them loose and slow, and then harder, and faster, until they both groaned and spilled together over Javert's big fist.

"That was good," Valjean said, when at last they subsided onto the sticky sheets in each other's arms. "We have not been together like this in a while."

Javert turned his nose into Valjean's sweaty neck and closed his eyes tightly. He murmured, "There is no one else for me, you must know that." 

Valjean stroked Javert’s hair absently and started to hum a snatch of song. Javert held him fiercely, as if by some strange alchemy Valjean's love could make him forget Chabouillet, forget the bright, hard beauty of punishment, forget that he had ever known service on his knees in Toulon.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2.1 — Paris; March, 1834** _

There was peace in their household for weeks after. Winter loosened its grip on Paris and a mild February gave way to an even milder March. 

Valjean accompanied Javert to the Bibliothèque Mazarine in the mornings. They walked arm and arm in the brisk morning air, stopping for coffee and breakfast at their favourite cafe along the Rue de Rivoli. They made a start on the new political treatise of de Tocqueville on the local applicability of the penal system recently implemented in the United States of America, _Du système pénitentaire aux États-Unis et de son application en France (1833)_. Valjean suggested they take in the new exhibits at the French National Museum of Natural History, and they spent several afternoons walking its quiet hallways, peering at its prodigious collections of insects and plants and geological samples. 

Cosette and Marius threw a dinner party on the second week-end of March, inviting lawyers from Marius' chambers and businessmen clients and his unmarried law school professor. Marius introduced Javert to his guests as "the retired Inspector Javert, my father-in-law's companion". A well-dressed banker, M. Schifferly, remarked that he found Parisian women tiresome and it was likely much more peaceable to live with a man as Javert did. Marius’ Professor Durand had sought his views on the current debate amongst academics and politicians regarding police powers reform. Javert found himself consenting to returning to dine the next week-end. 

"You enjoyed yourself," Valjean pointed out, slyly, as they retired for the night.

Javert made a snorting sound. "I suppose it was adequate, as far dinner parties go."

"Hardly," Valjean said. "You seemed to be pleasantly engrossed in conversation with several guests. Professor Durand was most keen to engage with you. And Cosette's housekeeper's new recipe for duck a l'orange appeared also to meet your approval."

Javert wrinkled his nose. "The old recipe was too sweet. There is no call for such over-indulgence in sugar. Also it seemed M. Schifferly, who says he has sworn off women, was most keen to engage with _you_."

"Not so strange, as it would appear _we_ have sworn off women, also," Valjean said, smiling faintly. He got to his knees beside the bed and held his hand out to Javert.

"That had better not be the reason why he was keen to engage with you," said Javert, getting to his knees as well. He rested his head against Valjean's broad shoulder and listened to that beloved voice recite the paternoster and the prayers for the day's end.

 _Lord, let Thy blessing always be over us and this household. In manus tuas, Domine._

Their days together were indeed blessed, God's favour infinite. Climbing into bed thereafter, Javert put his arms around Valjean and felt at peace.

 

***

 

The next week was filled with errands, which Javert detested. The portrait of Cosette in her wedding dress needed to be re-framed; the writing desk in the drawing room had developed a crack and required repair; they had run out of stationery. 

Javert accompanied Valjean to the framer's with less than good graces. When the workmen said they could not repair the crack in the desk immediately and needed to take the entire item away with them, Javert commented that good apprentices these days must be hard to find.

"Indeed, Monsieur," the master woodworker said, timorously, picked up all his tools and fled.

"We will never get any repairs done if you frighten away all the workmen," Valjean said mildly, afterwards.

"The repairs are not being done in any case, even if I were on my best behaviour," Javert said, peevishly. "Do not expect me to spend the next afternoon waiting for another set of incompetents to deliver the finished product."

"I will do it," Valjean said soothingly. Javert picked up his hat and coat and headed to the National Archives at the Hôtel de Soubise, where he shouted at the clerks for mis-ordering the new boxes of administrative documents which they had transported from the cramped underground corridors of the Prefecture. 

Valjean ended up asking Cosette to accompany him to purchase stationery at the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. They returned with sheafs of sensible cream and white paper, but also fanciful buttercup-yellow and pale blue, and sepia-coloured ink as well. Javert raised his eyebrows all the way to his hat-line over these purchases, and Cosette turned pink and murmured something about expense and got back into the Pontmercy carriage.

"I thought the ink would be a change for us," Valjean said.

"What, so that when we next write to the _Moniteur_ on the changes to the municipal sewage system we may do so on ... cheerful yellow paper with tiny embossed dots?" Javert did not think he sounded overly sarcastic, but a frown line appeared between Valjean's eyebrows over this implicit criticism of his beloved child, and that night the conversation over dinner was very stilted.

After prayers, they climbed into bed and Valjean hesitated, as if he was unsure whether any overture would be well received. "Will you...?" he said, tentatively.

Javert considered this. "Are you still angry?"

"I was not _angry_ ," Valjean began, the frown line appearing again. Javert took his face in his big hands and kissed the line and murmured, "Yes, you were, and I have given you reason to be," and Valjean smiled and let Javert press him down into the pillows.

The week-end arrived. Valjean discovered his formal cravat had developed a bad tear from the dinner at the Pontmercy house. This necessitated an unexpected return to the Avenue des Champs-Élysées to purchase a replacement. 

Javert made a very pointed remark regarding how something about that dinner must have made Valjean careless with his clothes, and Valjean was put in such uncharacteristic bad humour that he accidentally bought three white cravats, an unheard-of luxury in a man who only owned one formal suit.

The darkened clouds continued as Valjean and Javert dressed for dinner that evening. Valjean donned his ancient dinner jacket and tied his new white silk cravat à la Byron. 

Javert considered his own scant wardrobe, which included the formal jacket that Valjean had purchased for him two years ago and which he had worn to last week-end's dinner, and some perversion seized him. He had not worn his leather stock or his old uniform since his retirement, and no other clothing had fit him in quite the same way since then. Besides, the uniforms of the special City police force had been changed some years ago, and the guests at the Pontmercys might not look askance at this outdated costume.

His fingers were perfectly steady as he buckled on the stock and buttoned his jacket. The man who looked back at him from Valjean's mirror was the grim, ramrod-straight image of Inspector Javert of the Paris Police Prefecture, who had worn this uniform with such pride. 

It was as if time had stood still.

"Let us depart. Cosette will not wish us to be late," Valjean said, from behind him. 

He did not meet Javert's eyes, or ask him what he was doing or what he was wearing, or hold his hand as they got into the fiacre. They rode together in silence to No. 7 Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. 

The turn-of-the-century house at Filles-du-Calvaire was lit up brightly with candles and gas lamps. Cosette had engaged footmen and additional servants who bustled about assisting with coats and serving pre-prandial drinks. Cosette herself wore a long white dress with tiers of gauze and full sleeves; she looked rather surprised by Javert's attire. 

Marius clapped Javert on the arm approvingly. "The former M. l'Inspecteur! I had forgotten what the old uniforms looked like. I note you do not wear it with the traditional cocked hat."

Javert took off his tall hat and handed it to one of the footmen, along with his greatcoat. He knew very well that his old uniform hat with its white cocarde had been left on the banks of the Seine, never to be recovered.

It did seem as if, despite Valjean's best efforts, most of the dinner guests had already arrived. The Pontmercy drawing room was filled with men and a few women, likely wives, in evening dress. Professor Durand noticed him from across the room and made his way over. The way he held his tall body gave the appearance of a much-revered academic accustomed to commanding the hearts and minds of impressionable young men under his tutelage. He looked to be somewhat older than Javert, closer to Valjean's own age. 

"Good evening, Inspector," the Professor said, shaking his hand. "How charming to see you in this battle dress."

Javert found himself smiling, it seemed as if for the first time that day. "It was a long time ago," he said. "I live a very quiet life now that involves no battling, save perhaps over the improper shelving of books in the library or the proper care and storage of historical police documents."

"A warrior who has left the field still retains his thirst for the battle," the Professor remarked. Javert could not tell if he was making a jest, or something else.

"No warrior, but merely a policeman who tried to protect and serve as best he could," said Javert, and a tremendous weariness stole over him. He was relieved when Cosette called them in to dinner, and to take his place by Valjean's side.

Cosette sat across from Marius at the centre of their long table; she had placed her father at her left hand. Across from Valjean, beside Marius, was the well-dressed banker M. Schifferly. He spent much of the first two courses in discussions with Marius regarding his bank's ongoing law-suit, but Javert gradually became aware that he was casting looks across the table at Valjean. As the third course was served, he finally addressed his remarks to Valjean, as he had no doubt been planning all evening.

"I notice your new cravat, M. Fauchelevent. You did not wear it last week-end. It looks well on you." 

Valjean was clearly unused to such address. "I purchased it today from M. Lonnier's at the Avenue des Champs-Élysées," he said.

"Ah, this is why it looks starched by a professional hand." M. Schifferly dimpled when he smiled. In the table's soft candlelight, he looked not many years older than Marius, gold-brown hair curling on his brow. "I recall Marius commenting that you had no wife, but I was going to present my compliments to your housekeeper, or to your M. Javert, who looks as if he would be most keen to ensure all clothing was correctly starched."

Valjean glanced over at Javert with some nervousness, and with good reason: Javert felt entirely ready to pick up this impertinent man and turn him over his knee. 

"M. Javert is particular about correctness," Valjean said, and tried a smile. "I will say that our redoubtable Toussaint can never quite get his collars starched to his satisfaction."

"M. Fauchelevent, you might find that I would be somewhat easier to satisfy," the banker remarked, laughing, and Javert watched his own hand make itself into a very large fist at the table. 

He compelled himself to address the upstart calmly. "I do not doubt it, Monsieur. Persons whose standards are lax would be quite easily satisfied."

Valjean blanched, as did M. Schifferly, who turned abruptly to Marius and asked after his grandfather. Javert was rather pleased to feel furious, rather than merely labouring along under the week's simmering resentment. He did not speak further, not to Valjean or to Marius' young colleague on his own left or anyone else at the table. When dessert was over, he pointedly informed Valjean that they should be heading home.

Valjean was silent in the fiacre, and they did not speak on the way home. The March stars overhead were silent, too. 

When they reached Rue Plumet, Javert shouldered his way into the house, divested himself of his outer clothing and boots, and ascended the stairs to their bedroom without waiting for Valjean. 

He heard Valjean come up the stairs behind him, and follow him into the room. 

Valjean looked harassed; Javert could not recall the last time they had fallen out this badly since their profession of love for each other. He leaned on the wall beside their bed like a helpless giant. "Do not be angry," he said at last.

"Why not? That man showed disrespect. The nerve of him approaching you in such a blatant manner, it is not to be countenanced."

Valjean said, obviously compelling himself to speak calmly, "Well, you were sufficiently impolite to him in response."

Javert held himself bone-upright. It was impossible to do any differently while wearing his old stock. "It was not undeserved, and I had reason."

"Javert, he was Marius' client, and a guest in Cosette's home. You could have been kinder."

"I do not believe I am required to be kind to an upstart who flirts with my companion under my nose."

"Perhaps I mean, do not be angry with _me_ ," Valjean said, half-humorously, spreading his arms wide.

"I do believe I am angry with you, also," Javert said. His heart was beating very quickly, with rage and with something else. "After all, here you are making apologies for him, and seeking to excuse his behaviour by citing reasons to do with Cosette and Marius."

"Now you are being ridiculous," Valjean said, in exasperated tones. The frown line was clearly visible between his eyebrows; his eyes were filled with frustration. "You have been impossible all week, and none of it is my doing."

Valjean's anger: slow to rouse, and most alluring. Javert felt himself flush. "How little you must think of me to call me ridiculous under these circumstances," he said, making himself speak coldly, although everywhere along his skin felt hot. 

"No more little than you must think of me, to be in a temper with me all day, and to scold me like a child in my daughter's house. I do not know what has been ailing you this week, but it is unsupportable." Valjean jabbed a finger at Javert, into the navy blue uniform jacket buttoned tightly across his chest. "And tonight you are wearing this old uniform — for the first time in years! Why did you do this? Why are you _doing_ this?"

Javert took a step back. The outrage in Valjean's face, the coiled strength in that broad body like a promise of violence, filled him with an irresistible hunger which he could no longer deny.

"I wore this tonight because I wanted to be the Inspector again," he heard himself say, over the sound of blood in his ears. "The Inspector who deserves your punishment, who wishes to earn your punishment."

Valjean took a step back, too. "What?" he stammered. "Javert, you cannot mean — "

"Every word," Javert whispered. He had to sit on the edge of their bed, because his knees could not hold him up.

Valjean came close to him, large hands opening and closing as if to strike him or to stroke his hair: Javert could not tell which he, Javert, would have preferred. 

He said, in a choking voice, "Are you still obsessed over Jean-le-Cric, with Toulon? Why should we revisit those days? That man is gone!"

He wrung his hands together. "God in Heaven, send Your help to this servant in this hour. And I also pray He helps you, Javert, because it seems I do not know how to do so any longer."

Once again, in an echo of that past night, Valjean left the bedroom, left Javert alone.

Javert sagged under the long burden of weariness and regret. Where had those words, that desire, come from? In his heart of hearts, he knew all too well. 

Javert trembled with shame. He was vile, unspeakable. Valjean was right: he was required to repent and pray for mercy and strength. Awkwardly, he levered himself to his knees, put his forehead on his clasped hands, and began to recite the prayer of contrition. But the words to that ancient prayer could not drown out the words of punishment that spoke into his ear in tones of sinuous desire.

They, the words, the desire, had not just come from Toulon. They had come as well from Montreuil-sur-Mer, that quiet and treacherous place near the sea.

 

**_Chapter 2.2 — Montreuil-sur-Mer; March, 1823_ **

Javert’s bed in his Spartan lodgings is cold and remorseless. The harsh light of dawn filters through his un-curtained window. Outside, the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer is stirring, its honest people beginning to rise from their beds to go about their quotidian business.

Javert does not, himself, rise; he indulges himself in the weakness of another moment abed. He is bone-weary: the long journey to Arras to present his deposition at the Champmathieu trial and then back again has been entirely fatiguing. 

Even more fatiguing is the wretchedness of self-doubt that has gripped him ever since the letter from the Prefecture in Paris, which informed him that, for the first time in his life, he was wrong, and wrong about Madeleine.

Javert cannot imagine continuing to stay in his post. The Prefecture will never countenance this error, and nor would Chabouillet; he has shamed his patron and himself. 

Of course, Madeleine has asked him to remain, assured him he was merely doing his duty, but it would be unsupportable. Javert frowns as he contemplates the subject of his mistaken suspicions. 

The image of M. le Maire comes unbidden to his mind: the man holding out his hand to shake Javert’s, his open, honest face that looked so deceptively like the young, brutal face of that convict. It seems the broad body under the mayor’s neat garb does not after all bear Toulon's brands and marks of the lash as Javert suspected, the thick, corded neck ringed with the mayor's gold chain has never known the bagne's iron collar. The similarity in strength, in broad, powerful shoulders, in the thighs which the spun-wool trousers cannot conceal, is mere coincidence after all. He believed Jean-le-Cric sought to hide his nature under fine clothes and this finer name; he still does not know how it is that there can be two men in all the world who are made like beasts in the field, who are forces of Nature, against whom Javert craved to test his own strength.

These tormented uncertainties, these conflicted desires have plagued him for these four lonely years in Montreuil-sur-Mer.

Unbidden comes another image that has become all too familiar over the years — that of himself in his iron-grey uniform coat on his knees before M. le Maire, submitting to Madeleine's great authority and greater strength, unfastening those woollen trousers and taking the man in hand. In his mind's eye, Madeleine has the same beast-like dark-red prick as the convict, its thick weight like a cudgel in his grasp. 

The noises on the stairs jerk him, already half-hard, out of his thoughts. Javert rises at the familiar sound of police boots in hurried tread, and is halfway into his clothes when the pre-emptory rapping on his door begins. 

“Javert!” The door cannot muffle the unmistakable, commanding tones of M. Chabouillet.

Javert is astounded. He last saw M. Chabouillet four years ago, when he received his posting orders to Montreuil-sur-Mer. Surely his patron has not come to chastise him for his error concerning Madeleine in person? 

He opens the door with alacrity, attempting to button his shirt at the same time.

“I have just come from the Hall of Assizes in Arras,” M. Chabouillet announces without preamble, taking the room in a long stride. He is wearing his fine navy uniform, his hat under his arm and gold lion's head cane in hand; he must have ridden all night to arrive at Javert’s door, but his distinctive, high-browed face is as tireless as ever. “I came to tell you that you were _right_. M. le Maire, M. Madeleine, is the convict Jean Valjean.”

Javert feels this news like a physical blow. M. Chabouillet puts a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

“I ought to have known your instincts were sound, Javert. But the letter you sent — it was unlike you to write so foolishly about this politically powerful man, you sounded almost obsessed with him! I wanted to personally witness matters for myself, and so made a trip to Arras to attend the trial of the fugitive. I had planned to arrive in time to hear your testimony, but there was a matter at the office that delayed my journey, and I arrived at the audience hall of the Court of Assizes late in the day." Chabouillet pauses, frowning. "There I witnessed Madeleine’s confession to the assembled justices and jury that he, and not the defendant Champmathieu, was in truth Valjean.”

Javert is struck to the core by the savagery of his triumphant feelings. At last, the Heaven of having been proved right! The humiliation of his previous error with regard to Champmathieu has evaporated, is replaced by hard, fierce pride at the correctness of his instinct, at having so well and accurately divined at the outset. 

"I knew it," he snarls. "Where is the malefactor now? What is to be done about him?"

Chabouillet pats the inner pocket of his own uniform jacket. "After the testimony of Madeleine, that man departed the assizes. There were some legal submissions and debate, after which the jury set Champmathieu at liberty. I then took it upon myself to confer with the district-attorney and the President of the assize courts, and I have obtained an order for the seizure and arrest of the person of M. le Maire of Montreuil-sur-Mer." 

"He will not escape me this time," Javert says through gritted teeth, the hot blood beating in his ears. 

Chabouillet gives him a pointed look. "He will not escape _us_. I understand he has returned to Montreuil-sur-Mer. Finish getting dressed, Javert, and we will apprehend him together."

Javert flushes at his state of undress, fastens his cuffs and puts his shirt into his iron-grey trousers. Chabouillet takes hold of Javert's leather stock, and says, "Hold your hair back."

Javert sweeps his thick hair to one side as bidden, giving his patron access. Chabouillet puts the stock around Javert's neck, not ungently; despite the urgency of their errand, his fingers linger on the buckle.

"Your hair has become so long," Chabouillet says softly. He takes Javert's ribbon and binds it around Javert's heavy hair.

Javert lets the touch of his patron's hands distract him for a long moment. Then he is once again filled with hot triumph and the pleasure of the chase, of the prospect of putting his hands on that infamous Jean Valjean, whose fine disguise as Madeleine has not managed to mislead _him_. 

 

***

Chabouillet and Javert make a requisition at the neighbouring post for a corporal and four soldiers, whom they leave in the courtyard of the mayor's house. They arrive quietly at Fantine's chamber. Javert turns the handle, pushes the door open with the gentleness of a sick-nurse or a police spy, and enters, Chabouillet at his back. 

Beside the sick woman's bed, holding her hand, is none other than M. Madeleine, more truly known as Jean Valjean. 

Fantine's eyes lift when the two men enter the infirmary, and Madeleine raises his glance to Javert's. In an instant, he rises to his feet, all the blood draining from his broad, handsome face. 

“I know what you want,” he says, slowly.

"At last," Javert says, his blood singing in his vein. He feels cloaked in authority, reason, judgment and all the stars, as the noble St. Michael with his heel on the neck of all crime. "I've hunted you across many miles and even more years. And now you are mine. Are you coming? Be quick about it!" 

"What is happening?" Fantine asks in a wavering voice.

"Monsieur, I should like to speak with you in private," Jean Valjean says to Javert, speaking very rapidly and in a very low voice, "I have a request to make of you. We have spent time with each other here in M-sur-M, and I have always known you to be an upright man. Grant me three days' grace! three days in which to go and fetch the child of this unhappy woman. You may accompany me if you wish. "

The absolute nerve of the man, that he would mock Javert! "You must think me mad," cried Javert. "Give you three days in which to run away? Come now, I did not think you were such a fool!"

Valjean's eyes are dark and supplicating. "Inspector, this is a duty only I can fulfil. Three days, and then I will go with you. I swear to you —"

Javert's breast swells with pride: here is Madeleine, Valjean, prostrating himself before him at last! He steps forward to grasp Valjean's cravat and shirt front. The fabric bunches and tears aside in his grasp and he knows he will see underneath it the red brand of the gaol on the man's muscular chest. 

His voice rises to a roar: "I have a duty as well, to the law, and I will have justice!"

"The woman is dying, Javert. Just take him into custody and have done," Chabouillet interjects, coldly, cutting into the heart of the confrontation like a double-edged sword. 

Javert pauses, panting, and is brought up short; the avenging angel compelled to stay his hand. Chabouillet stands to one side, cold and implacable. And all the fight drains from Valjean, who bows his head and holds out his wrists to the iron weight of the Law.

 

***

"He has escaped!"

Javert cannot believe it: he is so enraged he is shaking, a thing that has never happened before. Lightning flares through his body, running along his arms and limbs and the top of his head. He shouts at the hapless jailers and soldiers; he leads the charge through the town himself, holding a police lamp overhead to supplement the street lights and the unforgiving stars, routing through alleys and public buildings, inns and taverns. He returns to Madeleine's factory and house and makes a thorough search, even disturbing a sister at prayer. 

It is all for naught. The man seemed to have vanished into thin air like a ghost. 

Chabouillet accompanies him to Valjean's house. His patron is cool, grim, his carriage erect, his eyes like stones. Of course Javert bears no responsibility for the escape, and Chabouillet does not even castigate the jailers. When Javert glances over, it is not blame he sees in Chabouillet's eyes, but a certain calculation.

They end their search in Madeleine's offices, which appear undisturbed. There is a drinking flask with an unused glass beside it, an untrimmed lamp that has not been lit.

The portress lights the candles and the fireplace at their behest, but the mayor himself seems long gone. It is likely that cunning fugitive had cleared out all valuables and documents and left them in a secure location out of the town before his travels to Arras, to make ready his escape. 

With the fire lit, the study is very warm. Javert takes off his coat and hat, as do the other men; he unbuttons his uniform jacket and pushes up his sleeves in order to closely peruse the papers strewn on the polished mahogany of the mayor's oakwood writing desk. He leafs through documentation for the town's new sewage system, dockets containing notes on the trials of the commission on highways for the infraction of police regulations, correspondence between municipal authorities on tariffs and taxes. He pulls out the desk drawers and rummages through writing paper and notebooks on council meetings filled with the mayor's cramped handwriting. There is no clue that would point to the whereabouts of the wily fugitive. 

The corporal says, dourly, "Doesn't look like he's planning on coming back."

Javert frowns. "I agree. We should search the riverside and the docks again, in case he seeks to leave town in a fishing boat."

Chabouillet says, "Leroux, will you take the men and make that so? Inspector Javert and I will remain here to stand watch, in the event that the convict returns here tonight for his belongings."

"At once, M. le Secrétaire." The corporal salutes the men smartly, picks up his coat, and turns on his heel to leave Madeleine's study. 

Chabouillet waits until the heavy wooden doors slide shut, and then he says, flatly, "As you say, that man isn't coming back."

Javert rubs his hand over his eyes. "Then why are we standing in wait here, sir? I would better deploy my time searching again at the Rue de la Cavée Saint-Firmin."

Chabouillet's voice is very quiet, but it cracks like the lash nonetheless. "You forget yourself, my protégé. There is no better deployment of your time when you are in my presence."

Javert feels the sting of his patron's words, steels himself so he does not flinch. "Of course not, Monsieur. Forgive me." 

"Not yet," Chabouillet says, quietly. He unfastens his own jacket and waistcoat. "You must earn your forgiveness, Javert. On your knees."

It has been four long years, but Javert's knees remember the position as if it were yesterday. Shame and desire well up within him, and he is humiliated to find that he is already half-hard, his arousal marring the strict lines of his trousers.

"Anything," Javert whispers, bending his head. "Command me."

Something jabs into Javert's neck, forcing his chin up — the hard, familiar shape of the sculpted gold lion's head atop his patron's cane. He meets Chabouillet's eyes, which are no longer cool, but filled with icy rage.

His patron says: "You were wrong to fixate on Jean Valjean. You were obsessed with the new mayor. Do not deny what I saw when you were with him."

Chabouillet slides his cane downward. He puts the heel of the cane into the open collar of Javert’s shirt and draws it down his throat, using the edge to rip the buttons free as it goes, baring Javert across his chest. Then he reverses his grip and sets the blunt golden head of the cane between Javert’s clothed thighs, rubbing against his cloth-covered bulge with steady strokes.

Javert's breath comes faster, the blood throbbing in his groin. He holds himself still, he knows Chabouillet will be angry if he were to start to grind himself against the polished knob as he so desperately wants. "The mayor is nothing to me," Javert whispers.

An abrupt slap rocks Javert's head, rocking him back on his boot-heels.

"You told me you would never lie to me." Chabouillet's iron hand seizes hold of Javert’s jaw. “You have selected a most inopportune time to start, protégé."

Javert closes his eyes. Behind his eyelids is the image of Jean Valjean, ruddy and feral against the Toulon sky; the image of M. Madeleine, his shirt in tatters in the town square of Montreuil-sur-Mer, surrounded by cheering townsfolk, meeting Javert's hot, accusing gaze with unyielding calm.

Javert swallows around Chabouillet's ungentle hand. He cannot keep up the pretence that the mayor has not been in his thoughts. "Sir, you are not wrong. However, I regret this fixation," he whispers. "It has always been my wish to do my duty without emotion or anger to cloud my judgment. That I could not do so in Valjean's case is reason for shame, and so I did not wish to admit it to you, or even to myself." He opens his eyes, doesn't flinch from Chabouillet's regard. "I am heartily sorry, Monsieur. Please let me make reparation." 

"I will have you make reparation to me and love every moment," Chabouillet says, sinuous and fatal. "You belong to me and no one else. I will see you dead first before you even think about serving another."

Javert's face goes hot. "I am loyal to you," he whispers. "Please, Monsieur. There is no one else, I swear it."

Chabouillet said coldly, "You will be made to remember that." He takes hold of Javert's leather stock; he pulls Javert to his feet; he shoves Javert onto Madeleine's oaken writing desk in front of the fire. 

“Over the mayor's desk. You know what to do.” 

Javert does, even though he has only ever been subject to such chastisement on five previous, precious occasions, his fingers fumbling with the fastenings of his uniform trousers. He pushes trousers and drawers down over his hips and his straining erection. He bends over, presses his chest flat across the mayor's desk, cheek resting on top of paper and the lacquer surface. The night air is alternately cool and warm from the fire, painting different sensations across his bare arse. His errant cock bobs between his thighs, stiff and rigid as Chabouillet's wooden cane and desperate for attention, the fluid from its tip smearing against the polished side of the desk.

Did he ever wish that Madeleine would take him across this desk? Did he not stand in this very room delivering his weekly reports about the state of petty crime and public order offences in the district, desiring, in some small, shuttered room of his heart, that the mayor would rip his trousers down and fling him on top of the files and papers and have his way with him, like the wild beast of the field which Javert believed the mayor to be? If so, he can never admit this to himself, not when his patron has just threatened to kill him rather than have him look to serve another. 

Chabouillet approaches the desk with measured tread, the sound of his boot-heels on the mayor's floor resounding in Javert's prone body. 

“Fifteen strokes." The smooth wood at the end of Chabouillet's cane is very cool against Javert's heated buttocks. “After each stroke, you will thank me for the privilege of my chastisement. At the end of this, we will see if you will be permitted to make reparation.”

Chabouillet's first cut cracks against Javert's buttocks. Javert gasps: this hurts like the slap did not. “One. Thank you, sir.” 

He struggles to hold onto his composure through the deliberate blows, heat and pain blossoming through his bare skin. “Two, thank you. Three: my thanks.” He is well aware that his rigid prick is throbbing, fueled by the strikes of his patron's cane, by his gasped words of gratitude. By the fifth stroke, he is fully hard, leaking between his legs, writhing despite himself, clutching the edges of the lacquered desk, the papers under him in disarray. 

Chabouillet pauses at the mid-way point, breathing heavily, and the eighth stroke cracks down, a different sort of lightning, twice as painful as before. Javert fights down a sudden, rising panic: his patron has never had occasion to chastise him with more than eight strokes, and has never been excessively forceful. Despite his obvious strength, it was his custom not to overly tax himself, preferring to leave Javert mostly functional afterwards. But now he is not holding back, putting his powerful upper body behind the swing, and when the ninth and tenth strokes land Javert can barely choke out his words of thanks. 

Chabouillet pauses again after the eleventh stroke. "You do not sound sufficiently grateful," he says, unevenly. "I am showing you the favour of my instruction, I am laying my own hands on you, when I should have someone else do this for me for all the thanks you are displaying. Would you like it if I had Leroux take a turn?" 

"No, Monsieur! Please," Javert whispers, humiliation and fear shaking him to the core. His hair has come loose around his shoulders. "I am grateful. For your personal attention, for the opportunity to make restitution. You need not deploy any other means."

"See that I do not," Chabouillet orders. "Otherwise I will have soldiers tie you to a post in the yard and flog you like a criminal." 

He makes a grunt of effort, and pain explodes across Javert's thighs. Javert cannot hold back his cry. "Ah, Monsieur! I ... thank you," he manages; he is mortified to see tears wetting the papers under his cheek, the ink smeared with the fluids that are leaking helplessly from the corners of his eyes and mouth.

"That's better," Chabouillet breathes. "Again," and again there is the small agony across his backside: of welts being raised, now of blood being drawn, by a strong man's righteous anger that he does not stint from any longer, bending his abject servant to his will. 

Javert can barely breathe, the shame and blinding pain have undone him. He arches helplessly against the strokes, his hair hangs in tangles in his eyes; he cries out and then gasps the words of thanks into the mayor's hard desk. If he ever thought himself an avenging St. Michael in pursuit of justice, earlier that day, that conceit is in ruins. He is nothing more than a man on his knees, no higher than the gutter, unworthy to serve the all-powerful Secretary of the Prefecture of Police, his generous patron who has given him everything of note in his otherwise sorry life. 

By the time of the fifteenth stroke, he can hardly remember his own name. He would have begged for mercy if he had the breath, or space in his mind to form words other than the two words of thanks that are all he has left. 

Finally there is an end to the unendurable. "Let this be a lesson to you," his patron says, panting heavily. "You are mine. No other hand will chastise you but my own."

"Yes, Monsieur. No other hand," Javert says, half-delirious. He can barely hold himself up; he sprawls across the desk like a puppet bereft of strings, his backside and thighs a mess of inflammation and agony. 

When Chabouillet slides his fingers around Javert's prick and finds him still half-hard, Javert cannot even feel humiliation. He moans helplessly as his patron palms his balls and rubs the thick shaft back to life, thumbing the ridge around the head until pre-come spurts from the slit in the engorged crown. 

"Are you ready to make further reparation?" Chabouillet asks in his ear as he withdraws his grasp. 

Javert groans at the loss, manages to raise himself an inch off the table. Chabouillet's cane hand presses him back down, the lion's head digging into his back, and his other hand slides into the cleft between his inflamed buttocks. Javert cannot hold back a strangled cry as Chabouillet pushes a dry finger into his hole.

“Oh God — Monsieur —"

"Ready yourself," Chabouillet says sternly, holding him down so he cannot move. A second digit joins the first, and he cries out again, clawing at the table. The friction is horrible, a different kind of pain to that of his already numb backside; his patron has never before done this dry. The feeling of violation is immeasurable. Then Chabouillet twists his fingers, pressing against his prostate with unerring accuracy, and pleasure shoots through him alongside the pain.

"Please, Monsieur," Javert says, he starts to beg in earnest after all. He can barely withstand the brutal assault on his hole, the burning, awful pleasure. Another finger pushes into his entrance, rubbing and massaging his prostate. He starts to thrust helplessly despite himself; the wooden edge of the desk is as hard as his prick and affords scant relief. Chabouillet is holding him pressed down so he cannot reach down to touch himself. He feels he will faint from the pleasure rather than the pain. "Please, Monsieur, I cannot, I —"

Chabouillet pushes down, works him open with his fingers relentlessly. "What makes you think you deserve to come? You deserve nothing, deserve less than nothing, chasing after this convict like a common whore."

Javert attempts to bang his cheekbone against the desk; he squeezes his eyes shut in shame at his weakness. "You are right," he manages to whisper. "Punish me, M. le Secrétaire, I beg you."

"Do not doubt that I will," Chabouillet growls, and pulls his fingers out of Javert; there is a brief pause, as his patron changes his grip on Javert's back, there is a rustling sound and an oily slop against his abused hole, and then there is something cool and hard pushing at the ridge of muscle there. Javert barely has time to scream before he is entered by the lion's head on his patron's cane.

Chabouillet twists the cane slowly, deliberately. The sculpted edges are smooth, but they can still catch and rend the sensitive flesh of his entrance. Javert wishes the lion's head would tear him open, to match the flayed skin on his thighs and the undefended fortresses of his secrets; he cannot stop his sobs. His debasement before his patron and the world is complete.

He cannot come like this, the shape of the lion's head is completely wrong, the sphere a monstrous bulge inside his passage. Nevertheless, the shameful arousal does not dissipate but grows in proportion with his humiliation. With each thrust of the cane come waves of awful throbbing that swell in his groin and his body and do not crest, that hold him on the edge until he thinks he will die of it. He hears himself beg until his voice cracks.

Then, abruptly, the sphere is slid entirely out of his passage. Although Chabouillet moves it slowly, the loss of fullness within him staggers Javert. He would have fallen from the desk at last had his patron not been holding him up.

"That is still insufficient. You need to know how completely you are mine."

"I am, Monsieur, do not doubt it," Javert whispers. Chabouillet does not take his hand off him. There is another rustling of fabric, and Chabouillet has taken the place of his cane, filling Javert to the hilt with his thick erection.

His master's penis is huge and hard, thicker than the cane, longer than his fingers. He sighs as he claims his place inside Javert's body at last after the four years away. His pace is usually measured and considered, entirely sure of himself and his command.

But this night Chabouillet sets a cruel pace, thrusting into Javert with as much fury as he had used to cane him. One hand grasps Javert's jacket, the other his bruised hip, his thighs slapping against Javert's lacerated arse. His breath is coming raggedly. "I will teach you not to desire another master," he says hoarsely; "I will have you across his desk; this accursed man will not best me." 

Javert moans: his patron's savage thrusts are even more overwhelming than the slow strokes of the cane, striking and rubbing against his over-swollen prostate. "Never," he says, "I swear it, Monsieur, it was a moment of madness. I am yours, yours, please —"

Chabouillet picks up the pace, pinning him to the cross of the table until Javert is almost insensible with pain and pleasure. "I will fuck the man out of you," he pants, "you will come with me inside you, you will come for me," and his long fingers finally take hold of Javert's leaking, neglected prick. That punishing contact is all he needs, and Javert comes with a strangled groan all over the mayor's desk.

The world pulls away from him for a long moment; bright stars wheel in his vision. He is dimly aware of Chabouillet cursing and spending hotly across Javert's arse, but he is no longer in control of his body or any of his senses. 

This is the punishment Javert deserves for having imagined serving another man, for wanting in his darkest days to have Madeleine punish him and use him like this.

A long beat, and then Chabouillet pulls him from the table. Javert is helpless as his patron draws him onto the couch beside the fire. He has to lie on his side. Chabouillet steps away and then returns with a cool cloth; pouring water from the mayor's drinking flask, he sponges the blood and other fluids from Javert's backside. Javert breathes deeply with relief and renewed pain. 

Chabouillet wipes Javert's face with the wet cloth, also, washing away the tears which Javert has shed for the first time in more than ten years, on that night Chabouillet first claimed him in Toulon. 

"I am reclaiming you from that man," Chabouillet whispers to Javert. “We will recapture him, we will best him, you will see that he is nothing at all."

Javert nods. He hopes his punishment has been satisfactory. He feels equal parts shame and relief. 

Chabouillet smooths Javert's hair from his face, as he had once tended to the young man he had met in Toulon. "Your reparation is acceptable," he continues quietly. "I had planned to take you back with me to Paris, and I see no reason for this momentary lapse to derail our plans." 

Javert closes his eyes. Were he another man, he would have sobbed bitterly over this reprieve. "I cannot tell you how grateful I am," he says, thickly.

"It is something you have earned," Chabouillet assures him. "Rest for a moment, and then I will tie your hair back and we will repair your clothing and return to the town."

The touch of Chabouillet's hand fills Javert with a weary triumph. Chabouillet has accepted his sacrifice of punishment, of pain, has permitted him to return with him to Paris. But at the same time, he is suffused with a deep, abiding shame, a debased unworthiness that makes a mockery of his triumph. He came to Madeleine's heel as a dog to its master, wanted to serve that man as he has served M. Chabouillet; he is rotten to the core.

The stars outside the mayor's window stand in judgment over him as over all of Montreuil-sur-Mer; they are not so easily misled.

 

 

**_Chapter 2.3 — Rue Plumet; March, 1834, the morning after_ **

Javert jerked awake with a start in the pale dawn light. He thought he heard Madeleine's voice calling him from far off Montreuil-sur-Mer, half a lifetime away.

"Javert," the mayor said again, and of course it was he: Madeleine, Jean Valjean, one and the same man, then and now.

Then, he had been the source of Javert's worst misery and greatest triumph. Now, he was Javert's beloved companion, the friend with whom he spent his days and his nights.

Save for the previous night, which he discovered he had spent on his knees beside their bed, wearing the uniform that had belonged to Inspector Javert, irreproachable agent of the police, who had spent seventeen years in pursuit of one fugitive from justice.

That same fugitive's large hands had closed on his shoulders, holding him gently. "God in Heaven, surely you did not stay like this all night?"

"Apparently so," Javert whispered. His body felt broken in so many places, aching from the past night on his knees, from the bruises left by his former patron on that terrible night years ago. His arse was sore, the hole between his buttocks burned with memory. It was as if the injuries from Montreuil-sur-Mer had never healed, like broken bones that had not been properly set.

"Slowly," Valjean said, and his great strength lifted Javert to his feet and assisted him to a seat on the bed. Then Valjean fumbled for the buttons on Javert's jacket. "Let us get you out of these clothes —"

"— I can do it," Javert said, closing his own fingers around Valjean's, as if fearful Valjean would still see the marks Chabouillet had left on his naked skin. He made himself permit Valjean to help him undress and put on his nightshirt like an invalid. 

Valjean's hands were gentle, and when he finally looked at Javert his eyes were filled with regret. "I am so sorry," he said, smoothing Javert's loose hair from his face.

Javert put aside the memory of other hands on his hair, turned to stare at him. "What do you have to apologise for?"

Valjean said, miserably, "Last night, I was so angry and full of my own fears, I did not consider how you were feeling. I should not have left and gone to sleep in the spare room." He touched Javert's cheek tentatively. "I should have known something was wrong." 

Javert's eyes stung. He found he could not speak. It was unsupportable that this kindest of companions, who had treated him with nothing but love and concern, could castigate himself for not being of more help with Javert's own unnatural vileness, his desire to be punished for all that he had done.

Valjean said, quietly, "What is it? You can tell me, Javert. I promise I will hear you. I will not leave again."

"I cannot," Javert managed, finally. He drew away from Valjean's hand. The bruises from his former patron's cane may have faded from his body but had nonetheless indelibly marked him with a craving for punishment that was inexplicable. He was not sure how he could endure the shame. The one thing that was certain: if Valjean knew how truly wretched he was, that good man could not continue to live with him under the same roof.

The thought filled him with absolute winter, with the thought of making an ending again at the Seine's greedy banks. He lay down on the bed and turned away from Valjean.

"Please, Javert," Valjean said, but Javert did not respond. They stayed that way for a long time, until the sun rose in the sky, its warmth giving no relief to either of them.

Finally, Valjean said, despairingly, "I do not understand. Is my friendship, is what we have, truly enough for you, or is there something else that you want, that you feel I cannot give?"

Javert could not answer. The face he had turned to the wall was dry with tears he could not shed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In 2.1, Javert dons [the 1829 uniform of the seargent de ville](http://www.sfhp.fr/index.php?post/2011/09/16/Les-uniformes-de-police-de-si%C3%A8cle-en-si%C3%A8cle) which includes the cockaded hat, and its jacket with its two rows of buttons with the coat-of-arms of the City. This uniform was changed by the time of the Pontmercy dinner party to the nine-button, single lapel uniform. 
> 
> In 2.2, Javert wears the policeman’s informal uniform of stock, iron-grey coat and trousers in _couleur muraille_ , which "uniform" Hugo might have been referring to in LM 1.8.3.


	3. Chapter 3

**_Chapter 3.1 — Paris; April, 1834_ **

There was no peace in their household after that. Javert stayed in bed for the next two days, struggling against the Seine's undertow. His sleep was fitful and haunted by ghosts of other men, of other hands touching him in punishment and seductive release.

He consented to eat when Valjean brought him broth and porridge, allowed himself to be cared for as in the first days when Valjean had rescued him from the river. Valjean was as patient as he had been in those days, and since his outburst on the first morning he had kept silent, so as not to cause Javert even more pain. His frown of helpless concern was as eloquent as words, though, and Javert was not insensible to the hurt he was causing his friend.

On the third day he agreed to rise. His body was not broken or unwell, and indeed after he had washed and shaved he was seized with a strange restlessness. He put on his greatcoat and hat and went walking in the streets of Paris in the pre-spring chill, treading the old city beat he used to follow when he had first come to Paris from Toulon, between the Rue des Bernardins and the Boulevard de l'Hôpital, and then, after his return to Paris, the paths of Boulevard de Bonne Nouvelle, Rue Saint-Denis and the Rue de la Chanvrerie. The physical activity, the familiar impact of his boot heels with the cobblestones and pavement and dirt, the rhythm of paths he had trodden as a younger man, were all calming. 

Valjean walked by his side. Their hands brushed and then clasped from time to time, and on the fourth day Javert started to speak to him again, describing the various locations which had been meaningful in his years in the police. He pointed out his old apartment at Rue des Vertus, the location off Les Halles where he had conducted his first major gang arrest, and then, crossing the Seine, the commissary at Rue de Pontoise where he had first encountered Marius and lent him two pistols.

Valjean remarked upon the architecture of the police buildings, and upon how he had never previously seen the city through Javert's policeman's eyes before.

The early April sunlight was as unforgiving of the filth of the streets as it flattered the soaring architecture of the roofs and structures and crenellations above the city. Javert saw both the banal and the sublime, and that they could co-exist side by side.

On the fifth day Javert's paths led him out at night as well, following the circuitous night patrol of the most junior policeman. The city of Paris under the distant starlight was as impenetrable as his heart and dreams. Valjean at his elbow, he walked until he was worn out, trousers filthy from the muck of the streets, and then collapsed in their bed. The exhaustion of his body brought him some measure of peace at last.

  
  


Finally on the Saturday, Javert led Valjean to Rue du Rivoli, where they drank good coffee and watched the citizens walk past on their daily affairs. They strolled to the Luxembourg Gardens and passed the bench where Valjean and young Cosette used to spend their spring days. Valjean showed him the house he had rented at Rue de l'Ouest, and they took their lunch nearby.

In the afternoon, they crossed the bridge to the Île de la Cité, past the sombre facade of the Prefecture of Police at Quai des Orfèvres and the Cathédrale Notre-Dame. They walked until they reached the Pont-au-Change. Javert pointed out the station house at Place du Châtelet, where he had written his letter of resignation, making apologies for his ancient cowardice and pride in Toulon.

Then, the sun setting, Javert led his friend and benefactor to the parapet at the angle of the Seine. They watched the sun's red rays upon the deceptively still black waters which had drowned so many and which would have claimed a policeman seeking a resignation from a lifetime of service.

Javert said grimly, "I left my uniform hat on that ledge, that night. You know, I believe it is lost for good."

Valjean put a hand on his arm. Outlined against the sunset, he looked powerful and compelling, a man of six decades who was still strong enough to tear the stars from the sky, to set mere police inspectors on fire. And yet despite it, he was gentler than any man Javert had ever known. 

He said, "You left more than that here that night. You lost more than that. But you gained, also."

Javert took Valjean's hand, lacing their fingers together. "I know that. I have never thanked you for what you have done for me."

Valjean blushed. "There's truly no need, Javert."

Javert turned his friend's hand palm-up in his own, square and strong enough still to match four men, able to bear the weight of life for the both of them. "Yes, there is, and I am sorry I have not said it until now."

That night Javert turned to Valjean in their bed and put his arms around him. The feeling of his friend's familiar body against his, the press of broad chest and belly and strong thighs, finally stirred Javert's own body to life again; he felt the blood flow into his groin, felt his stomach muscles tighten, felt his cock rise to take in the air.

Valjean shifted awkwardly in Javert's arms, and he felt the brush of Valjean's own erection against his thigh.

"Excuse me," Valjean murmured. "I do not mean to bother you. I just want to lie close to you, that is all, as we have been for these years. You will forgive my body's disobedience." 

"It is my fortune that your body is so disobediently welcoming, then," Javert said, smiling despite himself. He knew it was true, knew that all his previous words of avowal had been true — he did not know what he had done in this life or the last to receive such unexpected fortune as he had found with Valjean, in the winter of his days, when he was so broken and so undeserving and could no longer serve. 

The peace he had experienced for these two years under Valjean's roof crept into him with the rousing of his body, a slow unfurling of nature's first green. For the first time since he had dreamed of Chabouillet, of Montreuil-sur-Mer, he felt he might finally see his way towards putting his past to rights.

He pressed his mouth against Valjean's shoulder. "Be patient. I will be able to tell you soon what you wish to know."

Valjean ventured a small joke. "It is no trouble. I have the patience of a saint. It is one of the many saintly traits about me," and Javert scoffed and clasped him close and remarked, drily, "I take it humility is not one of them, then."

  
  


The next day was Sunday. Javert put on his good waistcoat and one of Valjean's new white cravats and they attended the Église Saint-Sulpice as usual.

There, Fr Michel-Marie delivered a rousing sermon about punishment and service. He contrasted the Old Testament notions of punishment involving lashes and man's sinful nature and salvation through the rituals of animal sacrifice with that of the New Testament salvation by grace, confession and repentance. Then he painted the image of the Christ on his knees, serving by washing his disciples' feet.

Javert knelt and gazed up at the modest Christ icon in the sanctuary, nailed to the wooden cross, taking on the punishment of the world. For two years, he had sought to convince himself that this was the only acceptable service: on his knees in humility before God, and not in humiliation before men. Two years trying to bury the past, believing that he needed to be punished for the sins of that past, when he realised that what he needed was to confide in the man with whom he now shared a bed. 

Javert had never had anyone in his life with whom he could speak freely about personal matters, let alone share deep, difficult confidences. It stood to reason that he would be this monumentally bad at it. 

Finally, though, it appeared that he was ready: that five days of walking through the city and his past had helped him make himself ready.

That evening they sat down to dinner. Valjean consumed the meal Toussaint had laid out for them; Javert found he could not. He toyed with his glass in the hope that the wine would give him courage. He could not speculate as to what food or drink or divine inspiration could give the right words to a man of pitifully few words. 

Finally, after the meal was consumed and the plates piled and there was no wine left, Javert concluded that some words were better than none, even though he was almost certain that no words could adequately describe what he needed to tell Valjean.

He began, "I do not know how to explain this. It is not a thing I understand myself." He steeled himself to summarise the heart of the matter: "When I was a young guard, desiring to rise in the ranks at Toulon, I was led into a sexual relationship with my superiors."

To Valjean's credit, he did not look as astounded or horrified as Javert had feared. Javert continued, since the words seemed to be coming after all, "I felt it was the natural order of things — I served them sexually as I served Authority and the law." He felt it was important not to stint from the most critical aspect of the matter: "It gave me pleasure to serve them in that way."

Valjean was silent. Javert said, "Later M. Chabouillet accepted me as his protégé, brought me to Paris, guided my career. I also served him sexually, and he occasionally punished me physically when I gave him reason to do so." He swallowed. "I am ashamed to say both these matters also gave me pleasure."

Javert stopped talking; he knew his words were hopelessly inadequate, but he could not bring himself to describe his experiences in more detail.

Valjean said tentatively: "Is this the same man who followed you to Montreuil-sur-Mer, to take me into custody?"

"Yes. And he was jealous of you, I mean, of the mayor, and punished me for it after."

Even more tentatively: "What did this Chabouillet do with you, that you took pleasure from?"

Javert closed his eyes. "He gave me orders. He choked me and caned me with a stick. He took me forcefully. He required that I submit to him and serve him in every way."

The world did not end with this pronouncement, as he had half-feared. He opened his eyes and saw Valjean watching intently.

Valjean looked like he was forcing himself to say the words. "And Jean-le-Cric?"

"I wished to serve him, also, even though it was a violation of Authority. I wished to serve and to submit to the mayor similarly." Valjean flinched, and Javert reached for his hand. "I am very sorry. I did say it would be difficult to hear. These are vile desires that would fill anyone with dismay."

"They are not vile," Valjean said, and there was no judgment in his eyes, just a quiet sadness. "You are not vile. I am listening and trying to understand. You have said to me you wished for nothing else in bed. Is that completely true? You can tell me, Javert."

Javert could not speak for a moment. It was vital that he be entirely truthful with his friend. 

"I have tried to tell myself I wished for nothing else," he said, at last. "I have never loved anyone, until you, and I am not very good at it."

He had not made that particular confession before, either. His hands trembled under its weight; his vision blurred. Valjean's eyes grew wet as well and he leaned close to kiss Javert's mouth. 

Fighting back damnable weakness, Javert continued, "And I know, also, I should not want to serve in this way, to desire punishment in this way. It is shameful. I feared you would find me shameful. And I fear you did, at least at the beginning."

Valjean said, "I certainly gave you reason for thinking I felt that way. I am sorry." He tried a sad smile. "It seems I am not very good at this either."

"No, I am to blame," Javert said honestly. "I ought to have told you sooner, rather than try to ignore the past in the hopes that it might go away and that living with you would cure me of it somehow."

Valjean put a hand on Javert's face as if he was touching a wild animal which was apt to flee or lash out at the slightest provocation. "What a thing that was done to you!"

Javert held himself still, let Valjean cup his cheek gently. The gentleness gave him strength to make this final confession. "Yes, but it was also a thing I did to myself. Is it that I now crave to serve in this way because of what was done to me when I was younger? Or was I always inclined to wish to serve, to submit, because that is simply the way I am?"

"It doesn't matter," Valjean said, and then frowned, correcting himself: "No, that is not what I mean. I mean, let us find out which it is, and what it is that pleases you. If you truly wish to serve, to submit, then ... well. We will find a way." 

He looked down for a moment, as if caught in his own private shame, and then met Javert's gaze once more. "You know that in those years in the bagne, I held myself apart from everything and everyone, and after I finally roused myself, I had no thought other than hate, than escape. After the Bishop, after I settled in Montreuil-sur-Mer, I spent my days dedicating body and soul to God — I also knew I could never let myself be close to anyone, lest they learn my secret. I had to be even more careful after I took Cosette into my care." 

Valjean cleared his throat and tightened his fingers around Javert's cheekbone. "What I am trying to say... I have spent my whole life keeping myself away from love, until you. But I know about sexual practices, even the ones of which you speak, from the bagne and other places. Do not think me unknowledgeable because I have had to keep myself from desire for safety's sake." His eyes held Javert's, profound with meaning; he tried another small smile. "Nor think me unwilling, now that I have no reason to withhold myself, to try anything my companion might desire."

Javert could hardly believe Valjean was saying these words: his saintly, modest friend, who had previously held himself free of the sordid demands of sex, who had never demanded anything of him either in bed or out of it. It was unthinkable that Valjean was actually willing to consider addressing himself to Javert's perverted sexual past, that he was not turning away from it in disgust. He took Valjean's hand from his face and held it tightly. "Truly, I do not deserve you."

Valjean said, with a hesitant smile, "Do not thank me yet." 

  
  
  


**_Chapter 3.2 — The Prefecture of Police; Oct 1831_ **

Eight years in Paris: its cobblestones and its crenellations, at once the very pinnacle and nadir of the human race. Javert has seen its heights and depths over this decade — the politics and power at the top, which he has neither the time nor the stomach for; the crime and punishment at the bottom, at which he excels.

The Île de la Cité is its crown jewel, a vision into all history: the beginning and end of passions and of the human hubbub.

Javert has followed these paths a hundred, two hundred times, to pay a visit to his patron at the Prefecture of Police. The summonses from M. Chabouillet have grown less frequent over the years, but the occasions where he is called on to serve are still pleasurable, and he values his patron as much as he has ever done. That their hair has both grown grey in the course of their long relationship is, to him, a matter to be valued.

And then there are the professional successes, in respect of which Javert feels entitled to be proud. Bringing criminals to justice is of course the collective effort of the police force, the machinery of a great civilisation; that said, there was no police agent who has more arrests for gang activities and subversion, more successful prosecutions, than Inspector (1st Class) Javert. M. Chabouillet's patronage has led him to the attention of other senior officials at the Prefecture; when Javert first returned to Paris from Montreuil-sur-Mer he had occasion to meet Prefect Delavau, and enjoyed for some months an unofficial role as his personal police spy. However, after the long period of stability at the Prefecture under Anglès and Delavau, the revolution in the political structure saw no fewer than seven men take and then leave the Prefect's office.

It now seems there is an eighth. Javert has not seen M. Chabouillet in weeks, not since Henri Gisquet was appointed Prefect of Police in Paris, but he understands that the new Prefect, a favourite of M. Périer, the powerful President of the Council, has been kept very busy and in turn the officers in the Prefecture have been most pressed since their new superior took office.

Briskly, he mounts the marble steps of the Prefecture building, hat under his arm. The Prefecture’s halls are as austere as always, having withstood the passage of time and kings and lieutenants-généraux of police. The panelled wooden walls and heavy furniture, the grand arched ceiling, the severe black-and-white marble of its polished floors, all speak of the solemn gravitas of their high calling. 

Javert joins the stream of uniformed men and civil servants in the Prefecture's passageways. He ascends the main staircase, the side stair, and finally reaches the door of Chabouillet's antechamber. 

Chabouillet's official rooms are as sombre as the building itself. A portrait of Louis-Philippe I hangs on the wall above the desk, where not two years ago a rather more ostentatious one of Charles X in white ermine had previously been.

His patron gets to his feet as the secretary shows Javert into the rooms. He looks tired, although the strict lines of his uniform are as unimpeachable as ever. In the late afternoon sunlight streaming from the side window, his handsome head of hair is almost entirely silver.

""It was good of you to come so quickly," he says, walking around the desk to shake Javert's hand. “I know you are very busy with the spate of robberies at Boulevard l’Hôpital."

"No more busy than you, Monsieur," Javert says. "I hear our new M. le Préfet has embarked on a re-drawing of territorial boundaries and re-deployment of officers in the hierarchy, including at the level of sub-prefects."

"News travels quickly," Chabouillet says, with a wry smile. "Will you take a drink?"

Javert does not drink while he is on duty, but then he never quite understands whether his visits to his patron are conducted in an official capacity or not. He sits on the chaise in the corner of Chabouillet's rooms as his patron pours the drinks; he accepts a cut-glass tumbler of Armagnac and takes a cautious sip.

Chabouillet sits beside him, drinks deeply, and then sighs. "Javert, how long have we have known each other?"

It does not take much calculation, for all that Javert does not usually keep count of the passage of years. "Seventeen years and a half." 

"Indeed." Chabouillet stares into his glass tumbler. "And they have been satisfactory, have they not? I have had other protégés, but none have I kept with me for as long as I have, you."

Javert does know this: he even worked on a murder case last year with one of them, the young, willing Inspector (2nd class) Desmarais, currently stationed at the station-house at Place Chatalet. As far as he is aware, Desmarais still calls on M. Chabouillet from time to time. 

He says, truthfully, "The years have truly been most satisfactory, Monsieur. You know how grateful I am for your guidance."

"And I have been grateful, also, Javert." Chabouillet rubs his brow. "Can you remember what it was that I said to you when we first commenced our relationship?"

For the first time that he can remember, Javert casts his mind back to the early days in Toulon's salt air, the quiet fireside room where he had first served his patron. He blinks, from the memory of pride, of shame, of fingers around his neck. 

"You said that there would be no returning to what I once was, until you released me from your patronage."

"Indeed," Chabouillet says again, and it dawns on Javert as to precisely why he has been summoned.

"You have served me faithfully," Chabouillet says, watching Javert's face. "And I have grown fond of you, my protégé. Perhaps more fond than is wise for any patron." He squares his shoulders under the navy uniform jacket. "In the event, M. Gisquet has requested to assume your patronage, as he is new to his position and is in need of protégés both competent in their work and loyal to him, and I have consented to release you into his authority."

Javert considers this; thinks of Montreuil-sur-Mer and the punishment meted out to him by lashes of the golden cane. Remembers the guilt and humiliation, remembers the rage-filled voice of his patron threatening to take his life rather than lose him to another. He supposes time blunts such emotions, or rather, perhaps his patron might have realised over the years that followed that Javert did not feel in the same way as to desire to kill for him, as to kill him.

How does Javert truly feel now? He has never been much given to introspection, but he believes he has never raised himself to jealousy, or bent himself to love — not even toward this powerful, handsome man, to whom he owes his career and everything he has. 

Still, there is an emptiness within him as he considers his release from Chabouillet's service. "If you think this is best, then I am satisfied," he says, slowly. "It would be my honour to serve M. le Préfet, as it has been my honour to serve you."

"I would have expected nothing less from you," Chabouillet says approvingly. He rises to his feet, and Javert gets up, too. He reaches out, touches the insignia embroidered on Javert's uniform collar, and the leather stock beneath it. "I will miss you, Javert, but another will be your master now."

Javert nods. He finds he can say nothing. Chabouillet cups his cheek and for the first and the last time kisses him slowly on the mouth.

 

***

_The Prefecture; Nov, 1831_

M. Gisquet's rooms in the Prefecture are newly-appointed and lavish and almost palatial, much larger than Chabouillet's, larger even than M. Delavau's had been. The man himself is much younger and handsomer than Javert expects; years younger than Javert, and as for the second, while Javert had never thought of himself as handsome, M. le Préfet looks as if he stepped from a painting. He is whipcord-lithe, dressed elaborately in civilian clothes of status. He is dwarfed by his massive desk. Javert towers over him.

" André tells me you have served him for seventeen years," the Prefect says, and it takes a moment before Javert realises he is referring to Chabouillet. Over these long years, he has never had occasion to consider his former patron by his first name. 

Gisquet says, "I have some need of assistance in my new position, and he assures me you are just the man for the job."

"It is my honour to serve M. le Préfet," Javert says.

"I hope so," Gisquet says. "I am a Prefect of simple requirements. After the Revolution, the state needs more eyes and ears to the ground than ever. We need men like you close to the people, to tell us who are loyal to the old kingdom and who to the state and which faction is ready to make trouble, so that we can ensure stability and security in our great city."

Javert makes a small, correct bow. "I will endeavour to serve you well in that capacity, Monsieur."

"Again, I hope that is so." Gisquet smiles a small, disquieting smile. "Also, I am a man of simple tastes. You will find me less indulgent than André is, and far less personal. Young officers are always delightful, but an older and more experienced officer has his uses, and can be to my taste as well."

Long years of discipline ensure that Javert betrays no sign of surprise or reluctance. Again he bows, correctly. "As Monsieur pleases," he says.

Gisquet nods. Abruptly, he rises to his feet and paces around the room. He opens an ornate wooden box on a side table beside a large chaise-longue, and takes something from it; as he returns to where Javert is standing, in front of the desk, Javert sees he is carrying a cunning, coiled whip made of leather. 

"André has his cane, Inspector, and I have this."

The barest flick of Gisquet's fine-boned wrist, and the coil of leather flexes as if it is alive.

Javert finds his throat is dry; his body filled with disquiet. He finds, after all, that he is not particularly eager to discover M. Gisquet's tastes in punishment, nor the ways in which older officers could bend themselves to his service. Perhaps his own tastes in submitting and in receiving punishment had altered over the years, or perhaps it was in truth only at Chabouillet's hands had he ever desired these things.

"I hope I never give you reason to be disappointed with or to chastise me, Monsieur," he says. His voice is perfectly even and pitched with humility.

Gisquet's piercing blue eyes narrow very slightly, and then a charming smile breaks out on his face. Another minute flick of the wrist and the whip coils neatly back in and around itself.

"But of course, Inspector," he says, kindly. "One can always teach an old dog a new trick or two."

 

***

_Rue de la Chanverie, June 5, 1832_

When Javert wakes to the sound of gunfire, wakes under the stars and the open sky, all his limbs cramped and aching, for a long and frightening moment he has no idea where he is.

His head hurts, the smell of gunpowder is stifling, there is a rough rope around his throat and across his body and between his legs.

Then he swims back to himself and remembers what has happened, where he is: at the barricades. 

The students who hold him captive are boys. Were Javert another man, he would feel pity for their ideals and their impending, doomed sacrifice. As it were, he considers his situation and wonders, not for the first time, whether his new patron deliberately sent him into this trap, either careless of his safety or hoping he would be caught and martyred in his turn for the sake of the state — a gallant policeman, felled while doing his duty, by dangerous rebels who would bring down the fabric of society while the good people of Paris quaked in their beds.

Javert pushes away the speculation. It is not his place to question Authority. And if his suspicions are valid, he would be proud to spend his life in service to his superiors' cause. 

The leader of the insurgents is shouting orders, and Javert becomes aware of movement around him. Someone unties the rope that binds him to the post and drags him forward into a patch of light. 

Enjolras turns to Javert and says, "I am not forgetting you. The little barricade of the Mondétour lane can be scaled. It is only four feet high. You shall be taken there and put to death."

So it seems to be his fate to die for the city, then. Javert hopes M. Gisquet considers his service to be adequate in this final sacrifice.

And then, the unthinkable: the man Jean-le-Cric, Madeleine, Jean Valjean, steps forward from among the group of insurgents. He says to Enjolras, "Do you think that I deserve a recompense for my service to the Republic?"

"Certainly. Name it."

"That I may blow that man's brains out."

It is a ringing cry of the prisoner whom Javert had not stinted to put to the lash, of the sponsor whom Javert had not allowed to save a dying woman's child. The cry echoes the long years that lay between them: the struggle for authority and power and beneath it a desire for punishment, retribution, revenge. Now it seems at last there will be an ending. 

"That is just," Javert says, meaning every word.

"Take the spy," Enjolras says, and Jean Valjean does so, finally putting his large hands on Javert after so many years since Toulon, since Montreuil-sur-Mer. The man's massive strength takes Javert's breath away. 

"The man belongs to you," Enjolras tells Valjean. God help him, Enjolras' words are truer than anyone knows.

Valjean takes Javert by the martingale, as one would take a beast of burden by the breast-band. As he follows behind with hobbled steps, Javert feels the shock of his arousal from heels to groin to head. It is only right — if he is about to die, let it be by the hand of this man, whom he tormented for years, who had tormented his thoughts for still longer, who is a torment even and especially now: the man to whom he now, finally, belongs. 

In this manner they cross the barricade, victim and executioner, bypassing the students, and scaling the entrenchment in the Mondétour lane. Javert is resigned; at last, decades too late, he has bent his neck to the authority of Jean-le-Cric. It is awful and glorious.

Once they are over the barricade, Jean Valjean pauses. He thrusts the pistol under his arm and fixes Javert with a look which Javert recognises from the bagne — the proud, feral stare of the brutal convict, unwilling to bend to the prison system and made to pay for it in his own life's blood. "Javert, it is I," the look says: Jean of Faverolles, Prisoner 24601, Mayor Madeleine — they are all this same man, Jean Valjean.

Javert will not do him the favour of cowardice, will go to his grave without confessing his shame. Instead, he replies, "Take your revenge."

Jean Valjean draws himself up, clothes himself in the authority of the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer, takes back his power as well as his rightful retribution; his eyes are the blazing eyes of St. Michael. He pulls a clasp-knife from his pocket and opens it. In the starlight the blade shines a fatal silver: one stroke and Javert will finally be at peace.

Javert finds himself on his knees before the man at last. It seems it is the meaning of his life to pour it onto these old stones, under the watching stars, to make a sacrifice of it, finally, to Jean Valjean. It also seems as if, rather than shooting him from a distance, Valjean will touch him before he dies, will hold him in order to draw the metal across his throat, might close his eyes afterwards. "You are right," he says. "The blade suits you better."

Valjean does lay hands on him, taking hold in a grip of iron that would make any man submit. But instead of spilling his blood in righteous retribution, Valjean does the unimaginable: he cuts the martingale which Javert has about his neck, then he cuts the cords on his wrists, then the cord around his boots. The ropes fall away from Javert’s chest and groin and limbs, leaving trails of fire in their wake.

"You are free," Valjean tells him.

Javert cannot understand this. Nothing in his life has prepared him for such an act — that a man who ought to hate him, whom he has pursued relentlessly for years, who now has ultimate power over him, might choose mercy instead. 

Valjean might have freed his body, but his soul is another matter. Perhaps Valjean might have be able to cut that bond between them before tonight, but now it is too late. Now this feared enemy has shown him compassion, has placed him in his debt, and he will never be free of Valjean.

"I'm warning you: have a care," Javert says. It is a threat without force. There is a hollow place inside him which knows he is expected to arrest this man, his unlikely benefactor, and present him to Gisquet, who had himself sent Javert to his death.

"Go! Be off with you!" Valjean roars, and Javert can do nothing save obey. He sets off in the direction of Les Halles, legs cramped and stumbling, barely able to hold his head up. In his heart of hearts is the knowledge that he is incapable of handing Valjean over to the merciless Prefect of Police, and because of this his carefully structured world has started to crumble.

In his mind's eye he sees himself falling through the darkness, the stars lighting his descent. He does not know whether death or God will claim him. He does sense, in some small corner of himself, that he has finally been claimed by love, but he has no idea why that would be so. 

 

 

**_Chapter 3.3 — Rue Plumet; April, 1834, the following morning_ **

Javert awakened slowly, luxuriously, rousing himself in the unmistakable shelter of Valjean's arms. He had dreamed of the barricades at night, dreamed of falling under the stars into the sea, uncertain where he would land, and woke to the certainty of Valjean's safe shores.

Javert had a policeman's unerring sense of time passing; the sky was dark with the stillness that comes just before the dawn. The morning star hung overhead like a revelation.

He turned in the circle of Valjean's arms to look at the man's sleeping face. Dreaming of Gisquet and the barricades and that June night finally made him understand that mercy could live side by side with authority, that gentleness augmented strength rather than compromised it, that all Valjean's physical supremacy was not blunted by, was only enhanced by, his submission to Javert.

All of this made Javert wish to serve him even more: this supremely powerful man who only wielded his power to give voice to the powerless, to set the imprisoned free, who let Javert hold him down and take pleasure from him more lovingly and generously than anyone deserved.

He brushed his lips against Valjean's collarbone, and Valjean's white lashes stirred and lifted. Blinking himself awake, he tightened his protective hold on Javert. "Did you sleep well?" he murmured. "What hour is it?"

"Early yet," Javert said. "And I did, for the first time in weeks."

Valjean said hesitantly, "What did you dream about? Still the past?"

"Yes. About the barricades, the night you freed me. It's strange how I had never dreamed about that before."

"I do not dream about that night either," Valjean said. "I sometimes think it is because I have you here with me, and that our life together is more unlikely than any dream."

Valjean's unusual fancifulness made Javert smile. "I had forgotten how it felt when you placed your hands on me that night," he said. "I am surprised that my dreams remember it."

Valjean smiled too. "I had also forgotten! And I was concentrating on cutting your bonds. I did not consider how I might rouse you with my touch."

"I was roused, although you did not mean to do so," Javert said; he was still smiling, but serious now. "The truth of it is that you have always roused me, from the time I first placed my hand on you in Toulon."

Valjean grew solemn, too. He shifted in position, took hold of Javert's chin in a gentle clasp. "Tell me what you want," he said, and there was a meaningful look in his eyes. 

Javert's heart began to pound; he started to breathe more quickly. "What I want is to give you back your dignity in Toulon, to have you exercise authority over me as you ought in Montreuil-sur-Mer." He swallowed thickly. "You saved me at the river, I owe you my life twice over. I want you to take me into your power as you did at the barricades. I wish to submit entirely your service." 

Valjean stared deeply into Javert's eyes, as if he could read from them everything Javert could not say. "You have never _needed_ to be punished, or to submit — to serve me, or anyone. You must know, Javert, that I am not one of those who would use you in that way." He swallowed, too, as if the thought of it hurt him even more than it did Javert. Then he smiled a small, wry smile Javert had never seen before. "If you _wish_ to submit to me — well, that is another matter."

Javert was finding it difficult to breathe, let alone comprehend Valjean's meaning. "That is indeed my wish."

"Well, then, let us begin, since you wish it," Valjean said, and sat up in their bed. " _I_ wish for you to undress." 

Javert spent another moment open-mouthed, and then scrambled to comply, pulling the nightshirt over his head. 

Valjean's smile grew wider. "Very good," he said encouragingly. "Now, lie face down on the bed."

Javert moved more quickly than he had in months. No sooner than when he was supine, stretched out with his bare chest and hardening cock pressed against the starched sheets, arse in the air, did he find Valjean's bare bulk on top of him, squeezing the breath from his lungs and pressing him inexorably into the mattress.

Javert groaned. The lack of air, the helplessness, made his blood sing in his veins. He arched back against Valjean's weight, ground his arse against Valjean's already stiff cock. 

"Ah, God," he said, thickly. "Jean, that is — I cannot explain it, it feels so good."

"Hush," Valjean said, running his big hands up and down Javert's arms both soothingly and in a way that pinioned Javert's arms to his sides. He began to rock himself between the cleft of Javert's buttocks, and Javert groaned again as Valjean's prick rubbed against his hole over and over. He started to buck helplessly against the mattress, trapped beneath Valjean's weight, trying despite himself to arch up against the immense physical power that held him down. 

"Do you like this?" Valjean murmured in Javert's ear, and Javert made a strangled, shameful sound, unable to touch his entrapped cock, unable even to struggle against Valjean's superior strength.

"Lie still," Valjean said; despite the tentative tone his order went straight through Javert's body and he stilled instantly, restraint trembling in every limb. Valjean sat up, bracketing Javert's thighs with his strong legs and holding him in place. Javert heard him rummage in the drawer on Javert's side of the bed, and soon after a warm, oil-slicked finger traced the ridge of muscle around Javert's entrance.

Javert could not stop his shuddering gasps as the thick, knotted digit slid into him, carefully opening him up in the same way Valjean had learned from him. He had not been touched like this in years, but his body remembered, spreading itself shamelessly on Valjean's fingers and surrendering to pleasure. 

Valjean said, wonderingly, almost to himself, "So this is as good for you as when you do it for me." He crooked his fingers experimentally and Javert loosed a low, desperate moan.

"Please, do not stop," he whispered, and Valjean did not, rubbing insistently until Javert was writhing and panting underneath him.

"All right, enough of this," Valjean muttered at length, swinging his weight off Javert's thighs. "Turn around. I want to see your face."

Javert complied with alacrity. He knew he was flushed and shaking and had made a mess of their sheets, and could not bring himself to care.

Valjean sat on his haunches on the bed; he took hold of Javert's hips in his big hands. In the gathering dawn light he was larger than life, bare chest heaving and ruddy from his efforts, the spread of his shoulders that of a much younger man — the most powerful and authoritative man Javert had known in his life. The jut of his massive prick made the breath stop in Javert's throat.

"Touch yourself," Valjean directed, and Javert needed no other cue. He put his hand on himself, groaning with relief. Valjean scooped him onto his strong thighs and hooked Javert's knees with his arms and held Javert in place as he finally entered with all his strength.

Javert fell back against the pillows; embarrassing noises tore from his throat. Valjean's thick cock filled him slowly and excruciatingly, making him submit helplessly to every inch, as Valjean took his pleasure deep within Javert's body. 

Javert moaned again. His hole ached with the indescribable stretch and burn of Valjean inside him. It was at the same time too much and not enough; he felt both overwhelmed and frantic for more. The last man to take him roughly and give him orders in this way may have cut him loose years ago, but had only now relinquished final possession of him, and here was Valjean, claiming him with love.

"Javert," Valjean said; Javert belatedly realised he had closed his eyes, overcome by the sensation of fullness. His friend was perspiring, white hair hanging over his face, invincible in the early morning light. "This feels ... it is so different, I cannot — are you ready for me?"

"Please," Javert said, and Valjean began, carefully and then less carefully, to thrust; it was everything that Javert craved and more. Struggling for self-possession, he raised Javert's knees to his shoulders so that he could overtake him even more deeply, and Javert saw stars streak across his vision. 

"Please, Jean," he begged, scarcely able to form words, trying to push himself back onto Valjean's cock, grasping hold of his own cock with an unsteady hand. "Make me yours;" he had no idea what he was saying any longer, desperate for Valjean to invade and take possession of him, to cast out all past conquerors, to erase the marks of Chabouillet's fingers with Valjean's own. 

Valjean grasped his hips tightly enough to leave bruises and began to fuck into him in earnest, as if he could drive away the memory of any other man who had been there, could prove himself victorious over any other claim on Javert's body. "You _are_ mine, you belong to no one else," he panted. Javert's world had narrowed to the flexing of Valjean's powerful muscles, the slickness of his bare skin, the way Valjean filled him to the hilt with enormous thrusts, driving noise and breath and thought from him, save for the unimaginable force of this man who overwhelmed and mastered him so easily and so completely. 

"Javert, I cannot stop myself," Valjean gasped, a note of fear coming to his voice over his loss of control. In response, Javert seized him even more tightly, and Valjean came inside him, convulsing and crying out, marking him with hot, wet spend. 

Valjean subsided for a moment, panting harshly, pressing his sweaty forehead to Javert's own. Javert held onto him with terrified, thrilled intimacy. Then: "Spend yourself for me," Valjean whispered, wrapping one hand around Javert's in a crushing grip, and Javert groaned brokenly and released in a helpless gush across their joined bodies and their sheets.

The sun crested over the clouds, the brightness of the morning covering their bed in light. 

Javert was exhausted, conquered; he had nothing left. He lay in surrender in Valjean's arms as if he was drowning or being reborn.

Finally Valjean stirred. He slid his quiescent member from Javert's hole, and, heedless of the mess, drew Javert close again. When he spoke, his voice was full of surprised pleasure. "I never thought... Why did you not tell me this is how it feels?"

Gathering his thoughts with some difficulty, Javert considered this reluctance in the context of his past, hidden shame. "I did not know if you would enjoy it?" he said, at last. "You seemed to enjoy submitting yourself, and I was so gratified that you would even consent to my presence in your bed that I never wished to trouble you."

"It is no trouble. I do enjoy submitting myself to you, do not think I do not." Valjean smiled a little bashfully. "It is quite something to be so open to you, to have you take me in that way. I did not realise, though, that I may have been selfish, to have not offered the same to you before!"

He paused, and looked even more bashful. "And now I can tell you that I enjoyed this taking of power as well. It is quite something else to be inside you, I could hardly keep control of myself." He ducked his head against Javert's shoulder, looked sidelong at him, tentatively. "To possess you in turn, to have you submit to me? It was very satisfying." 

He grinned and gave Javert's shoulder a small squeeze. "We may need to discuss the matter of punishment a bit further if that is something you still desire, but do believe that I will need no urging to henceforth overtake you forcefully and make you mine, should you but ask."

Javert could not speak for a long moment. He closed his eyes; he held onto Valjean tightly. "I _am_ yours, no one else's. You are the first man I have ever submitted to in love."

"And I you," said Valjean, tracing an idle circle against his skin. "Is it strange for men to speak of love to one another? I do not say it to God, but I imagine He knows."

Javert opened his eyes in amusement and surprise; he saw Valjean was smiling, full of joy in the bright day. 

"God knows you love Him more than anyone; more than Cosette, more than me. I would be jealous, save that He was good enough to give me to you at the river, and every moment since."

Valjean grew serious. "You do belong to me, Javert; we were given to each other. You will never need to serve again, or to be punished, unless it is something you wish for yourself."

"I know it," Javert said. It was a miracle: that Valjean still desired to be with him, that Valjean could take pleasure from a mastery of him, that he could be of service to his friend after so much brokenness. "I am just not certain of what I wish, or whether I will keep desiring it, or how long the shadows of the past will be. Whether I may still desire your punishment. It might be so for all my life."

Valjean took his hand, his eyes very certain and sure, echoing merciful starlight, reflecting the sun. "Then, my friend, we have all the time in the world to find out, together."

**Author's Note:**

> (My veriest thanks to missellamason, esteliel and groucha for betaing above and beyond the call of duty!)


End file.
